Teacher suspended over segregated class
Teacher suspended after parents, protesters outside school decry ‘apartheid’ tactics
A TEACHER who allegedly separated black and white children in the Grade R class at Laerskool Schweizer-Reneke in North West has been suspended with immediate effect, Education MEC Sello Lehari said yesterday.
The suspension was to allow investigations to continue, he said.
Lehari said the school’s explanation was that black children were separated because they were new at the school and could not speak Afrikaans or English.
“We did not accept the explanation,” he told community members.
Lehari said a decision had not been taken on the fate of the principal.
A photo showing a small group of black children sitting at a separate table away from white children at the school went viral on social media and raised the ire of political parties.
Irate parents at the school said yesterday they did not believe their children were safe.
“I was shocked to see young children in that position,” said one parent.
Yesterday protesters, many donning political party T-shirts, gathered outside the school gates to protest against what they termed racial segregation at the school.
“The incident happened at a class next to my child’s class. She was not affected, but this segregation cannot continue.
“Our children cannot experience what our parents went through during apartheid,” said one mother.
She was at the school to collect her child from the tense situation that had developed. While protesters sang and danced outside the school, some parents of white children broke a part of the fence on the other side of the
school to gain access and take their children away.
A teacher reportedly sent the controversial picture to parents via WhatsApp, intending to show parents how children were settling in on their first day at school on Wednesday.
The National Freedom Party (NFP) called for the shutdown of the school, saying it strongly condemned the racist
segregation of pupils.
“These private schools’ tendencies of segregating pupils based on the colour of their skin is against the principles of the democratic South Africa we live in today,” said Sabelo Sigudu, spokesperson for the NFP.
The NFP blamed the government, which it said neglected public and rural schools.
“As a result, blacks, including coloured and Indian people, have no option but to take their children to such racist private schools for better education,” said Sigudu.
The party said the deterioration in public schools was “directly leading the country to the apartheid era”.
“The barbaric conduct displayed by private schools of racially segregating
children is equally the same as giving innocent children experience of an apartheid system,” said the NFP, which urged the ANC-led government to ensure that it improved the conditions and quality of education at public schools.
The party also urged witnesses to expose all incidents of “racist private schools” so that they could be shut down.
The DA also condemned the incident.
“The DA strongly condemns the alleged separation of black and white pupils in a Grade R classroom at Laerskool Schweizer-Reneke in North West.
“It is outrageous that a classroom in 2019 can be racially segregated, which only serves to teach young children from day one to see each other as different and separate.
“This is unconscionable,” said Luyolo Mphithi, Federal DA Youth Leader.