Durban - The KwaZulu-Natal Education Department is investigating claims by a Msinga teacher that her headmaster assaulted her in an altercation over a vacant senior position at the school.
Hlehlile Thusi, a teacher at Nyanda Primary School, told The Mercury that principal Thokozani Qwabe left her battered and bruised on Wednesday last week.
When contacted, Qwabe said he did not want to comment as the police and the department had launched an investigation.
Thusi said she had applied for the post of the school’s foundation phase head. She had worked at the school for 23 years, and felt she was qualified.
She said that when the person who resigned from the post was reinstated, she felt it was unfair, and that Qwabe had intended to reappoint that person all along.
Thusi said Qwabe called her into his office and said they had to discuss something while the pupils and teachers were at the morning assembly. She said Qwabe locked the door and put the key in his pocket.
“He asked me what exactly I wanted from him. When I asked what he meant, I found myself on the floor after he slapped me in the face. When I tried getting up, he hit me in the face and my glasses broke.
“He kicked me. My left eye closed, and I could barely see,” she claimed.
“He threw me on the floor and beat me up. When I banged the table and the cupboards, people must have started hearing me, and they all came to see what was happening.”
She said that when Qwabe unlocked the office she dashed out and went home, and then to the local education district office to report the incident. She went to the doctor and then opened a case with the police.
Education spokesman Isaac Luthuli said the district director was investigating the matter.
KwaZulu-Natal legislature Speaker Lydia Johnson, responding to a report in Ilanga, said that if such an incident was true, no amount of anger “should warrant such brutality”, and added that a school should be a safe place.
“What lessons are we teaching our children when we can’t resolve issues through dialogue?”
Police spokesman Thulani Zwane confirmed that an assault case had been opened.
The Mercury