Johannesburg - A teacher lashed a pupil 55 times on her palm and the back of her right hand with a stick, fracturing bones in her arm – and then turned around to cry foul that her dismissal was unfair.
Arbitration at the Education Labour Relations Council has upheld the Eastern Cape Education Department’s decision to fire Azile Mbokhwe, who joined the teaching profession in 2016.
Mbokhwe had dragged the department to the council in a bid to have the decision to axe her reviewed. She taught maths at Marelane Senior Secondary School in Mbizana.
She argued for a sanction similar to that of her colleague who had stroked the pupil, referred to as AM in the arbitration ruling, three times.
The colleague and head of department at Marelane, named as Mr Magwaca, was the first to lash AM for failing to attend extra afternoon lessons scheduled by Mbokhwe.
He was found guilty of administering corporal punishment and suspended for three months without pay.
Mbokhwe argued for the same sanction before arbitrator Mark Hawyes, despite the fact that she was axed on the basis of being guilty of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.
The department led evidence proving that she hit AM 55 times. This inflicted injuries that caused AM to have to wear a cast for over a year to heal fractured bones.
AM testified that Mbokhwe first administered 15 lashes on the back of her right hand. The girl withdrew her arm after the 15th lash, but this only enraged Mbokhwe. She added 20 more strokes on the back and palm of her hand. A little while later, Mbokhwe decided to hit the learner another 20 times.
AM’s guardian noticed that her hand and arm were severely bruised when she got home. Mbokhwe and her husband later took AM to the doctor, who diagnosed that bones in her right hand were fractured.
“Given the extent of the swelling and the diagnosis of broken bones, it is more probable that additional strokes were administered to cause the said injuries. I thus accept AM’s testimony and find that the applicant struck AM’s hand 55 times,” Hawyes said in the ruling delivered this week.
This led him to rule that the department was correct to mete out different sanctions to Magwaca and Mbokhwe.
“It is common cause that Magwaca only administered three strokes to AM’s palm,” Hawyes said. “The facts of Magwaca’s corporal punishment and the assault of the Applicant are at odds and cannot be reconciled with the parity principle.
“Thus the (department) did not act inconsistently in charging and disciplining the applicant in the way that it did. The dismissal of the applicant, Azile Mbokhwe, was fair,” said Hawyes.
Corporal punishment became illegal in the country in 1997. But some teachers continued to be found on the wrong side of the law.
Section27, a public interest law centre, announced last month that it had taken up two cases concerning teachers who received “insubstantial” sanctions for striking learners.
On Sunday, Section27’s Boitumelo Masipa said the centre was still pushing to have the lenient sanctions set aside.
Of the 456 misconduct cases finalised by the SA Council for Educators during 2019/20, 157 (38%) were for corporal punishment and assault.
The Star