Principal accused of nepotism in choice of head girl
Parent of rival pupil claims her daughter was victimised
TWO sets of parents are at odds about which of their teenage daughters should be the head girl of their school.
One of the parents is the headmaster of the school.
Manuel Govender, principal of Newcastle High School in northern KwaZulu-Natal, has defended his daughter, Michaela, 16, who was recently elected head girl.
But Prelina Ramkissoon, an optician in the town, believes her daughter, Raakhee, 16, is more deserving of the honour.
Both parents and their daughters gave the Sunday Times permission for the names of their children to be used.
Govender said the system of selecting the head girl was fair and denied that he had influenced it. He was ready to take the matter to the Constitutional Court, if necessary.
The head girl was chosen from 60 pupils.
Govender said under normal circumstances he would have selected the head girl, but because his daughter was a candidate, he had recused himself.
The voting was done by teachers, pupils and prefects, and the final selection was made by a committee of senior teachers, prefects and Grade 11 pupils.
The staff then decided on the two head prefects.
However, a teacher at the school told the Sunday Times that the selection process was flawed.
“Even if the principal recused himself, he still had an influence on who was selected head girl because the selection committee is full of yes-men who want to please him,” said the teacher.
A parent of a pupil, Schantzel Chutel, 45, said she was unhappy with the process.
“The principal is not fair. He wants things to go his way. My daughter was also sidelined for the position of head of culture,” she said.
Another parent, Vinesh Singh, said the process was riddled with nepotism and unfairness.
“Deserving children are often overlooked owing to flawed se- lection processes, but more often than not nepotism.”
Ramkissoon wrote to the provincial department of education saying her daughter had “clearly been victimised as she is by far the most deserving candidate”.
“Raakhee performs better academically on a constant and continuous basis,” she said.
She said in her submission that her daughter had been chosen to play hockey for the school after trials, whereas Michaela had been given a place in the team without attending the trials.
“My issue is not with the prefect system, but with the abuse of the system to benefit a pupil who is not deserving of the title.”
Raakhee said the head girl issue had been “emotionally and physically draining”.
“It didn’t have to happen this way. I understand that you don’t always get what you want, but this is a case of getting what you deserve,” she said.
Responding as principal, Govender said his daughter had also excelled academically and was always in the top 10.
He said his daughter’s record could be checked at the school.
“What makes a teacher’s child different from any other child?” he asked. “Why is it that society believes that doctors, lawyers, engineers and any other business person’s child should be a prefect, but a teacher’s child must be sidelined because their father is a principal?”
Michaela said her selection as head girl had been blown out of proportion.
“It fills me with disappointment. People have to accept that I have been selected head girl on merit and not because my father is principal,” she said.
The school’s governing body was satisfied with the process, according to its chairman, Shaun Pillay.
This is not the first time that Govender has faced controversy.
When he was appointed principal in February 2008 of what had been an Afrikaans-medium high school, he was greeted with boos and the singing of Bok van Blerk’s De la Rey on his first day at work. Today it is an Englishmedium high school and only about six Afrikaans-speaking pupils remain.
There was a mass exodus of Afrikaans-speaking pupils three months after Govender’s appointment.