Teachers asking pupils for bribes

Eastern Cape ranked as second most corrupt province by survey

AS the academic year draws to a close and the exam season nears, Eastern Cape teachers are set to make a quick buck from pupils desperate to get good grades for university entry – by selling question papers at about R350 each or demanding favours in exchange for better marks.

This, as the province was found to have the highest number of teachers soliciting bribes or even sexual favours from pupils in exchange for better marks.

The Eastern Cape was also ranked the second most corrupt province overall after Mpumalanga.

The findings were contained in a survey on corruption in schools released this week.

Congress of SA Students (Cosas) provincial secretary Mfundiso Oliphant was shocked at the findings and urged pupils to report incidents to the student body.

“If there is evidence of this, it must be brought to the fore and the law must take its course,” he said.

“We encourage pupils to come to us and we will take their cause forward because these teachers deserve to be arrested. We will support pupils throughout the court process. There is no place for this in our schools.”

Oliphant said the biggest form of corruption by teachers in schools that Cosas knew of was around the nutrition programme.

“Teachers’ focus has shifted from their core job of teaching to worrying about who gets the school feeding tender,” he said.

The survey, commissioned by social watchdog Corruption Watch and carried out by market research company Pondering Panda, found Eastern Cape principals to be the most corrupt in South Africa, at 61%, mainly for the misuse of school funds and property.

Teachers were the biggest culprits when it came to selling question papers and soliciting bribes and favours from pupils in exchange for better marks.

A total of 3 284 people between the ages of 13 and 34 were surveyed, with most believing that corruption in South Africa was increasing sharply.

About 10% of the pupils, parents and community members polled said they or someone they knew had to exchange favours for marks, while 277 said exam and test papers were sold to pupils at schools.

In the Eastern Cape, 86 people reported teachers asking for favours or bribes for better marks and 32 said exam or test papers were being sold.

Pupils in public schools were the biggest victims, with 178 cases of pupils having to do favours and 94 incidents of question paper sales.

This is in comparison to 53 and 36 in private schools and 38 and 47 in FET colleges, respectively.

Corruption Watch executive director David Lewis said most of the reports made to the watchdog since it launched last year involved schools.

“This could be due to a number of reasons – that there is more corruption in schools than other places or that people are more concerned about education and report more.

“This survey confirms a mounting perception that corruption in schools is on the rise, with mismanagement of funds by principals, extraction of favours in exchange for marks by teachers and nepotism in the employment process being the most prevalent.

“We believe that this can be turned around. The more people report corruption, the more it is brought into the spotlight, forcing the powers that be to act against it,” Lewis said.

Federation of Governing Bodies of

SA Schools chief executive Paul Colditz said although the findings were based on perceptions, they were “greatly concerning”.

“Corruption with regard to financial matters is not uncommon, even in our [1 100] member schools. We are seriously concerned about this in terms of our education system in general.

“While our member schools are able to effectively deal with any wrongdoers, we encourage other schools who are riddled with such activities to make a noise about it so the perpetrators can be bought to book.”

Eastern Cape education portfolio committee chairman Phumzile Mnguni said while the issues raised in the survey could be happening in the schools the committee visited regularly, the schools would not be forthcoming about it for fear of getting into trouble.

“The levels of corruption spelt out in the survey are totally unacceptable, especially soliciting money or favours for marks,” he said.

“When doing visits again, we shall arm ourselves with this survey and ask pupils, teachers, parents and principals whether such activities are taking place in the schools. Should we have something to latch on to, we will be ruthless in dealing with it.

“When a child is in school, the teacher is their parent for those six hours, so they should not be doing these things to pupils.”

Eastern Cape Education Department spokesman Malibongwe Mtima said he could not comment on a report the department had not yet seen.