Cape Town - Curro High School top brass in Somerset West and the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) have joined hands on zero tolerance towards racism, bullying, and cyberbullying at the school.
This comes following a meeting between the parties after a Grade 9 learner was allegedly physically and cyberbullied by a fellow learner during a netball practise at the school.
Cosas had also claimed racism was involved, but it has since emerged that was not the case and the two pupils were from the same race group.
The alleged victim has since been withdrawn from the school by her parents.
Curro spokesperson Natasha Mkhize said the outcome of the meeting confirmed that all parties have the same goal in mind. “All parties in attendance mutually agreed on a zero-tolerance towards racism, bullying, and especially cyberbullying.
The group reiterates that it is completely committed to unity and racial cohesion and does not condone any form of discrimination, cyberbullying, religious intolerance, hate speech, derogatory language, or anything that affects the dignity of a human being, across all its schools.
During the meeting, no disruptions took place and, as a priority, the school’s learners were kept safe,” said Mkhize.
Speaking on behalf of the learner’s family, Unathi Mbebe of Mbebe Fuba Marais Attorneys, said no race-related incident was reported to her by her client. “All I know is that the parent reported the matter to the school during the week of May 11.
The headmaster promised to deal with this manner in a very stern manner but that never happened because the perpetrator continued to play netball.
“Now it became an allegation because the child says that the perpetrator hit her hand during netball practise, hence the child resorted to staying away from school because she was scared,” said Mbebe.
Cosas provincial secretary Mphumzi Giwu said: “We sat there at the meeting and what they did was to table the incident report on what happened and the measures. However, there was not much difference from what we heard. We still felt that they were very lenient on the actions and decisions they took when it comes to cyberbullying and remarks made and that is why the matter escalated.
“With racism at the school, we are currently putting together incidents that occurred at the school, many parents have come forward. The school is disputing the allegations but in the meantime, we encourage learners and parents to come forward with these incidents,” said Giwu.
Cape Times