Johannesburg - A video showing pupils from Curro Roodeplaat Private School being separated according to race while on a school outing has caused an uproar.
The children were on an excursion at the Sechaba Safaris in Pretoria on June 3.
This is the second racism levelled against Curro Roodeplaat this year.
In February this year the same school was found to have separated pupils according to race in classrooms.
This latest video has gone viral and has driven people on social media to call for the school to be shut down.
However, the school said on Thursday morning that there was nothing racist about what happened and that those who think there was anything untoward about what they saw on the video had arrived at a false conclusion.
School spokeswoman Mari Lategan said the reason the children were separated was because of the classes they were in.
“The children were in the buses according to class. We are a dual-medium school and parents have made a choice as to whether their children be taught in Afrikaans or English. The Afrikaans children were in one bus and the English in the other.
“A video taken of this outing showed the various groups of learners. And with no explanation people assumed that the groupings were organised according to race,” she said.
In the video, children get off the bus. The first group of children, made up of white children, go one way. The second group is also made up of white children.
The third group is made up of black children, while the last group is made of a large number of black children and about four white children.
Lategan said the white children in the last group were in the English class because their parents wanted them to be taught in English.
“The majority of Curro schools offer instruction in English only, whilst Curro Roodeplaat is a dual-medium school. Thus, in a classroom in which the language of instruction is Afrikaans, the overwhelming majority will be white students. In a classroom in which English is the language of instruction, the vast majority will be black learners,” Lategan said.
The Star
* A previous version of this article included a video which allegedly shows the school children being separated according to race. After a complaint from the parent of one of the children in the video, it has been removed. IOL apologises for any distress caused.