Johannesburg - A Parkdene Primary School teacher in Boksburg who called a Grade 3 pupil a “c**lie” several times and ordered him to remove a red Hindu religious string has been suspended without pay for three months.
The teacher was charged with misconduct for ordering the pupil to remove his religious string and for calling him a “c**lie” several times.
Last year, the Grade 3 pupil, who may not be named, apparently smashed his hand with a door so that his mother would not send him to school, where his teacher allegedly shouted racial and derogatory slurs at him.
The music teacher also allegedly yelled at the boy in class, “Are you deaf, dumb or stupid?”
For three years, the 10-year-old boy had allegedly endured abuse, harassment, name-calling and discrimination by the teacher until The Star highlighted his plight in October.
The teacher, who is married to the principal of the school, was placed on precautionary suspension after Gauteng Education MEC Barbara Creecy instituted an investigation into her conduct.
After being found guilty, she was suspended for three months without pay and given a final written warning.
Gauteng Department of Education spokesperson Charles Phahlane confirmed that the teacher had been found guilty.
“The educator has five days to appeal against her conviction and sanction,” he said.
But, the parents of the boy say the sanction is not harsh enough.
Speaking to The Star, the boy’s mother said: “How can they just suspend her for six months when she put my child through hell for three years?
“I don’t think this is a fair sanction. After three months, she will be back at the school, and God knows what she will do to my child this time,” she said, overcome by emotion.
“I don’t even know how to tell my son about the sanction because he’s so scared of that woman.
“Last year, he hurt himself because he was scared to go to school. I don’t know what he will do this time when the teacher comes back.”
Reacting to the parents’ fears that the teacher might target their child again once she is back at the school, Phahlane said the teacher would lose her job if she was found guilty of the same offence.
“That’s what the final written warning means,” he added.
Earlier this month, a pupil from Siphamandla High School in the Western Cape was allegedly suspended for wearing Rastafarian dreadlocks.
The principal allegedly told the pupil to come back after cutting his dreadlocks. The pupil said the dreadlocks were part of his religion.
In another incident in 2010, papers were filed at the Equality Court about a Rastafarian pupil in the Free State who was expelled because of her dreadlocks.
The school re-admitted the pupil and the matter was dropped from the court roll after the school agreed it would amend its code of conduct to accommodate religious diversity. - The Star