Cape Town - A group of former South African College High School (Sacs) pupils have complained against the current school governing body (SGB) over its failure to deal with racism and discrimination at the historic school.
The group of past pupils, calling themselves the Anti-Discrimination Collective, have collected stories from pupils spanning decades, which detail claims of racism, homophobia and religious intolerance at the boys’ high school in Newlands.
Anti-Discrimination Collective spokesperson Alexander McLeod said the current SGB was elected to office in March 2018.
They have had more than two years to develop policies that address the racism, discrimination and slow progress of transformation at the school.
McLeod said it was concerning to see racism persisting at the school nearly three decades after his own experiences as a pupil of colour there.
“To see that the same thing is happening now as when I started there 27 years ago is worrying,” McLeod said.
He said the SGB had strikes against it which included the failing to adhere to a request from the Western Cape Department of Education (WCED) to update its code of conduct in line with Provincial and National Policies.
Dr Kerrin Begg, chairperson of the Sacs SGB, said the hurt voiced by many past and current pupils highlighted systemic failures on the part of the school in fulfilling the objective. Sacs must be the safe space that is the catalyst for change.
Begg said over the past five years the SGB had implemented a proactive transformation agenda. However, she acknowledged that the current transformation agenda was not enough and needed to be accelerated.
She said they were reviewing the Sacs code of conduct, ensuring it was aligned with the school’s values, which is aimed at promoting positive behaviours and responsibilities.
Begg also acknowledged that it fell short in specifically outlining discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. However, she said the code of conduct was clear that pupils had the right to not be bullied or mocked and be discriminated against on grounds of race or religion.
WCED spokesperson Bronagh Hammond said the department had not engaged with the collective. They have been instead engaging directly with the governance structure of the school.
Hammond said the department had not received any complaints regarding racism or discrimination at the school. “Many of the allegations are related to incidents that happened in the past.
“The district has now been informed of the allegations and will engage with the school. The school has a transformation agenda in place, and has allegedly invited the collective to participate in the process,” she said.
Hammond said in 2016, the WCED asked all principals to take a close look at their codes of conduct to ensure they complied with the principles.
National Association of School Governing Bodies (NASGB) chief executive Matekanye Matakanye said the duty of the SGB was to govern schools through the policies that they formulated, such as supporting the principal and teachers, code of conduct for pupils, language policy, adopted a budget and to recommend staff to the head of department.
ANC deputy chief whip and education spokesperson Khalid Sayed said the party was disappointed that yet another school was having a public spat about race, transformation or representativeness and discriminatory practices.
Sayed said it was unacceptable to have such tensions in “our” state schools where all parties needed to play a constructive role to put schools on a positive plane and a model for society.
“It is also very unfortunate that the SGB and department clearly has not played the leadership role one expects from a school body with a long tradition in the province.
“It is high time that the WCED wakes up and fulfils its duty to get codes of conduct and policy in place and executed to get schools like this out of a bog of suspicion and finger pointing,” he said.
Cape Argus