Claims of sex assault at school

EDUCATION officials are set to swoop on a high school in northern KwaZulu-Natal after it emerged this week that a principal‚ a teacher and a security guard at the school had been accused of sexual assault.

The three separate incidents at the Richards Bay school only emerged this week as provincial education officials were investigating another Zululand school where a teacher was caught on video severely assaulting female pupils in a classroom.

Now the department wants to launch an investigation to determine if more than three pupils were victims.

The three Richards Bay employees are among six Department of Education employees who were suspended yesterday on allegations of sexual assault.

KwaZulu-Natal education spokesman Kwazi Mthethwa said official processes were under way to ensure harsh action was taken against the three employees.

More people could still come forward with allegations, he said.

“The teacher has even appeared in court and is out on bail. With the principal‚ the process of getting him to appear in court is under way‚” Mthethwa said.

“This happened in the same district where we are trying to deal with the case of corporal punishment.

“While we were dealing with this incident‚ which caught the eye of the whole nation‚ we decided to deal with all the cases at once‚” he said.

The department’s Muzi Mahlambi confirmed that the teacher in the corporal punishment video was also suspended‚ meaning that seven Department of Education employees had been served with suspension letters yesterday. All of them were from the same district.