Stalwarts of the 1976 Soweto Uprisings have blamed the government’s relaxing of disciplinary measures for sexual abuse cases which are on the rise in South African schools.
Former teacher and activist Lybon Mabasa said incidents of educators having sexual relations with pupils were almost taboo back in the day.
However, the advent of technology had helped blur the lines, he said.
“The major thing has to do with how young people today aren’t protected. There is also the increase in sexually explicit material at schools.
"Not that they (sexual relationships between teachers and learners) weren’t happening in our day. They might have been happening, but not at these levels,” Mabasa said.
The media has carried news reports recently of teachers having sexual relationships with learners.
At the beginning of the year, the Reiger Park Secondary School principal was embroiled in a sex scandal after videos and pictures of him having sex with pupils and staff went viral on social media.
A Nquthu teacher, in northern KwaZulu-Natal, was dismissed by the provincial education department after videos of him having sex with learners also circulated on social media.
Last year education officials and social workers descended on Siboyiye Combined School in Mpumalanga after it was revealed that a 45-year-old male teacher was in a relationship with a 15-year-old Grade 10 learner. It was alleged that the teacher had been involved with the learner from the time she was 12.
Reports of teachers being in relationships with learners was unheard of in 1976, Mabasa said.
“There were certain things that were taboo in the past. It was not as common as it is now. It was extremely uncommon.
"It was a thing of how the students saw themselves and how the teachers saw themselves; the kind of relationship that was created.
"The situation then would not have made it very easy for such relationships. Whoever did that was likely to be looked down upon by his peers,” he said.
Today, he added, this was no longer the case. “There is a certain level of normality; such behaviour is being accepted,” Mabasa said.
Lax laws and consequence management, according to him, had allowed sexual abuse to thrive.
“At the time when schools were very strict, sexual relationships were extremely difficult to find,” he said.
Former Naledi High School learner Keledi Motsau, who is now an administrator in Wits University’s education department, concurred.
“This disciplinary thing of government it has broken down boundaries. Learners back then had no powers and privileges except learning,” she said.
Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said relations between teachers and pupils were illegal and a punishable offence. He said he had expelled a lot of teachers who were found to have been involved in such relationships with learners.
“We just have to act and act decisively when we get such reports,” he said.
Lesufi pointed out that teachers used to go out with learners during his school-going days but this was not as widely reported. “It might be that they were not reported as we do now through various forms of media.”
In order to deal with this scourge, his department has an integrated reporting approach to the matter in partnership with the departments of Safety, Social Development and Health.
“In each school we have appointed a teacher liaison officer. Every learner can report anonymously to that teacher if there is a teacher who is creating problems," Lesufi said.
“We are working with NGOs like the Teddy Bear Clinic that (has officials) who are highly trained to detect whether there is sexual harassment.
“We are proactive. We don’t wait for something to happen because, in some of these incidents, a teacher does not start today to harass a learner; it starts with something and develops into harassment.
“So we have put systems in place to allow us to deal with those things. We have also included this in the performance contract of our principals so that they are obliged to report these things,” he said.
Lesufi said the department wanted school-governing bodies to adopt a resolution that they would report all sexual-related offences.
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