Pupil, 14, beaten with sjambok

AN EASTERN Cape school principal faces both a criminal charge and disciplinary action after he allegedly sjambokked a 14-year-old pupil, leaving him with bloody stripes all over his body.

Siyavuya Mapapu, in Grade 7 at Cofimvaba village school, says he was beaten by Mzukisi Mdlankomo after he had a fight with another pupil. Describing the ordeal in the presence of his family, Siyavuya said he was called into the principal’s office for the beating.

“He forced me to lie on the chair and sjambokked me several times on my buttocks and arms. It cut deep into the flesh.

“I screamed and asked him to stop – I apologised, but he would not stop,” Siyavuya told the Dispatch.

The alleged assault came as the education department – in the province and nationally – faces a high number of lawsuits against teachers and schools for implementing corporal punishment, which is against the law.

“This is bad – I have never seen a child beaten like this in my life,” said the boy’s mother, Busisiwe Mapapu.

Mapapu said the lashing came after her son had a fight with a schoolmate over sweets.

“Instead of dealing with the matter as a professional and a school manager, the principal decided to execute such a barbaric act on a child,” said Mapapu, fighting back tears.

Mapapu said she was shocked to see her son in such a state and thought he had been attacked by criminals.

“I then thought it was a junior teacher who assaulted my son, but I was shocked when I arrived at the school and found that the teacher was in fact the school principal,” she said. “He apologised.

“But how can we accept an apology from a person who has assaulted my son?”

Mapapu yesterday opened an assault case against Mdlankomo at Cofimvaba police station.

Police took statements from the principal but did not arrest him.

When the Daily Dispatch approached Mdlankomo at his school he referred all inquiries to the Cofimvaba education district office.

Education department provincial spokesman Malibongwe Mtima said the matter had been escalated to the department, both in the district and provincial office.

Cofimvaba police spokeswoman Captain Namhla Mdleleni said a case of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm had been opened. —