Teach sex pests a lesson

WE PLACE a very high level of expectation upon our teachers. We expect them to teach our children. We expect them to instil in them the values necessary to become successful adults in society.

Our expectations are often not met, however, because the noble calling of education has become debased. It’s ironic how so many of today’s leaders were taught by teachers who refused to obey apartheid supremo Hendrik Verwoerd’s dictum to render the black African school child into nothing more than hewers of wood and drawers of water.

They and their generation, and the generation that followed, were able to get educated, to hurdle the legal minefield placed before them to qualify in the professions that were denied them.

The dawn of our democracy in 1994 and our progressive government’s determination to create centres of educational excellence – seen in the billions of rand allocated every year – should have signalled the dawn of a brave new era. Instead, we have seen the rise in sexual assault cases at schools.

In September last year, the South African College of Educators announced plans to name and shame teachers who were convicted of abusing pupils. The announcement came hot on the heels of revelations of two teachers impregnating 30 pupils at a Northern Cape school and a video allegedly showing the rape of a pupil in KwaZulu-Natal by her teacher. It was a move that immediately received the endorsement of one of the country’s most visible and vocal education MECs, Gauteng’s Panyaza Lesufi.

Last Friday, a principal at a Johannesburg school resigned after videos and pictures emerged, purportedly of him raping and sexually assaulting pupils in his office. The provincial department should have suspended the principal immediately pending a full investigation.

Instead, it looks like he was able to escape censure by resigning – only after public outrage had mounted.

The principal should actually be arrested by the police, brought to court, prosecuted, convicted and jailed – for a very long time. This is the only way we will stop sexual predation in the classroom.

We don’t have time any more for platitudes to parents and soundbites for TV cameras.