Pupils speak of fear of ‘chair-throwing, racist teacher’

SHE allegedly hurled chairs at pupils and called them derogatory names.

Pupils at Ottery Methodist Primary School were so scared of the teacher that they were initially reluctant to tell their parents for fear of reprisal from the teacher.

Now the Western Cape Education Department is investigating charges of misconduct against the teacher. She was told to leave the school before her sixmonth contract ends.

“The WCED has zero tolerance for corporal punishment, which is a form of assault. Our Labour Relations Directorate (LRD) is aware of the matter and is investigating.

“The alleged educator was reportedly in a contract post at the school for six months but left before the time as she was being investigated.The principal of the school will report incidents involving teachers to the LRD for investigation,” Millicent Merton said.

One of pupils said the teacher had a very short temper. “We had just started class with her, and she asked me to move to another group and stay there. I told her I cannot move to another group, my class teacher told me to join this group and not move.

“She started getting angry and told me to do as she told me. As I was explaining to her that I will be in trouble with my class teacher, she said since I do not want to move, she will make me. She came straight towards me, took a chair and threw it towards me hard and I ducked. It hit another pupil who was injured,” said the Grade 6 pupil.

The pupil said they were scared of the teacher. “This was not the first time she had used an object to show her frustration, usually she would make racial remarks and swear at us, which I did not like.

“She would say things like ‘our black parents wash dirty toilets for a living no wonder we are like this’,” said the pupil.

The mother of one the pupils said when her child would come back from school, she would tell her how the teacher intimidated them.

“As parents we went to the school the moment we heard about the incident. We learnt that the teacher has been treating our children badly for months and they are terrified of her. I believe if this incident did not happen we would still be in the dark, thinking our children are happy at school. We want her to go and never come back.”