Bullying by over-age learners ‘rife across SA’

BULLYING by over-age learners is one of the causes of absenteeism among younger pupils who are too afraid to attend school, teacher unions told parliament.

Unions are also concerned about the “significant percentag of foreign educators found to have fraudulent certificates in the employ of the department of basic education.

These are some of the problems that were highlighted during the basic education portfolio committee’s oversight visit to schools in the North West.

In its report submitted to the National Assembly, the portfolio committee states that the SA Teachers Union (SAOU) raised the matter of “over-age learners being forced upon schools where they were the cause of much frustration with reports of bullying resulting in younger learners being afraid to attend school”.

Committee chairwoman Nomalungelo Gina said the extent of bullying by older pupils happened across the country was “quite serious”.

“It’s not even just in the North West, but you look at the Western Cape and other provinces, it is quite rife,” said Gina.

She said they were taking the matter seriously and that there was a section in the department’s social cohesion policy that dealt with bullying.

Gina noted how older learners who are most likely repeating grades were involved in the bullying in most cases.

“There are some learners who

and are above age which is an issue. Even at combined schools you find older learners. So the issue of age needs to be emphasised especially where there is a huge gap,” said Gina.

The SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) also informed MPs that certain schools had in their employ “unqualified foreign nationals with fraudulent certificates”.

Gina said most of these teachers were found in provinces on the border with other regional countries.

“It is bad especially when you talk of those provinces like the North West which are near borders,” said Gina.

She said the department did not renew contracts when there was a fraudulent certificate and foreign teachers had to renew their permits annually.

Gina said the figures showed that up to 75% of foreign teachers had fraudulent certificates, with most of them coming from Zimbabwe.

The committee’s next stop will be Limpopo and Mpumalanga.