Cape Town - A teacher at Steenberg High School accused of using corporal punishment, exposing learners to pornographic websites and calling a boy “blackie” has been found guilty of misconduct.
The guilty finding comes after learners decided to break their silence on the allegations lodged against their Grade 8 teacher.
The learners, who are now in Grade 9, approached Philisa Abafazi Bethu founder and gender-based violence activist Lucinda Evans to share what transpired.
One of the girls’ mothers told the Cape Argus that the teacher told her daughter, who was 13 at the time, that she looked like “someone who is going to fall pregnant in school”.
The mother said the teacher had displayed inappropriate behaviour towards her daughter since the first day of school, when he put her out of his class.
“He said it was because she was disruptive, but then it went on for a month and a half where he didn’t allow her back into the classroom because she refused to take a hiding over her hands with an iron ruler, so he said he won’t teach her.
“I then went to school and spoke to him, he was very arrogant and cocky. I later learnt the principal went to lodge a case against him in the second term of school.”
The mother of the boy who the teacher called “blackie” said her son’s confidence took a knock.
“He also told my son that he was picked up in a dustbin and a darkie.”
The learners confided in Evans with more explicit details of their experience in the teacher’s geography and maths literacy classes.
“They told me about how he would separate the girls and the boys and let the boys sit on one side of the classroom, where he would show them porn websites and tell them they could use it to masturbate on.
“He also told them to wear their ties according to the length of their penises.”
Evans has since offered counselling to the learners and said she wanted the teacher deregistered.
Western Cape Education Department spokesperson Millicent Merton confirmed that the teacher had been found guilty of misconduct but they would have to wait on the ruling of the presiding officer for a decision on his sanction.
“The educator will not return to the school until the outcome of the sanction,” Merton said.
The parents said they were happy the teacher finally saw the repercussions of his actions.
Police spokesperson Anelisiwe Manyana said that a case of assault common was opened at Steenberg SAPS against the teacher.
No arrest has been made.