Education authorities will not act despite 50 “teachers” - at least according to the DA - bunking school to attend the court case of controversial principal Moss Senye.
The teachers allegedly defied the Gauteng Department of Education’s orders not to abandon classes to attend court in solidarity with Sadtu’s Central Gauteng leader Senye.
Departmental spokesman Charles Phahlane said there was no evidence to suggest that the people who attended court were actually teachers.
“There may well have been 50 people at the court, but how does the DA know that those people are teachers? If they have their names and schools, we will investigate,” he said.
This comes barely a week after the department served warnings on 58 teachers accused of abandoning classes in support of Senye during his previous court appearances earlier this year.
Senye and his co-accused, teacher Ofentse Phehle, appeared in the Protea Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday. They are facing a charge of assaulting a 17-year-old pupil at their school, Meadowlands High.
DA Gauteng education spokesman Khume Ramulifho insisted that he had seen the teachers at Senye’s court hearing.
“I was there and I could recognise them. I had seen them from some of my previous visits to their schools. Some were even wearing (Sadtu) branded clothes,” he said.
On Phahlane’s statement that he provide the department with a list, Ramulifho said: “The same system that was used to identify the 58 teachers must be used. We were never in court then, but the department was able to compile a list of names. The principals, as the managers of schools, must check their respective attendance registers to see which teachers were on duty and who was not,” he said.
Ramulifho said the DA would submit questions to the department over teachers opting to attend court instead of school.
Sadtu spokeswoman Nomusa Cembi said the union had not sanctioned teachers’ attendance at the court proceedings.
The case against Senye and Phehle was last week transferred to the Protea Magistrate’s Court from Meadowlands for security reasons.
In March, Sadtu members blocked the entrance to the Meadowlands court before Senye’s appearance. - The Star