Cape Town - An ID Mkhize High School teacher in Gugulethu has been dismissed after the Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) found him guilty of sexual misconduct.
The teacher faced allegations that included grabbing a 14-year-old girl by the waist, hoisting her up against a wall and placing his hand underneath her buttocks.
According to the ELRC arbitration award, the teacher was friends with the pupil’s uncle.
He represented himself and pleaded not guilty to the allegations.
The teacher had emailed ELRC commissioner Jacques Buitendag, indicating that criminal charges against him were withdrawn.
However, Buitendag said this had no bearing on the misconduct charge he was required to determine.
The pupil testified that on February 28, 2022, her older sister, uncle and some friends including the teacher were drinking alcohol at her home.
Later on all the adults left and her mother told her to close the door.
“A few minutes later there was a knock on the door. When she asked who was there, the teacher told her that her mother had sent him.
“She opened the door and went to the bedroom. The teacher called her back. She went to him,” the arbitration award read.
The girl further testified and demonstrated how the teacher had allegedly lifted her up against the wall, placed one hand on her buttocks and said to her that he would “make her an adult”.
She also testified that he wanted to kiss her but she turned her face away and he kissed her on the cheek.
The girl pushed him away from her, fell and ran to the bedroom screaming.
She took her younger sister who was in the bedroom and they escaped through the window and ran to their aunt’s home.
The teacher claimed the girl was fabricating the incident because she believed he had taken money meant for her birthday, which was the following week.
He further put it to the girl that she did not have the strength to push him away from her, but the child responded that the teacher was weak on the day in question because he was intoxicated.
The girl's younger sister, 12, testified that she was in the bedroom when she heard her sister screaming.
Her sister then came into the bedroom and they later fled.
The aunt testified that she heard the children crying and calling her name before 9pm. She said they were crying and shaking.
When she asked them what was wrong, the 14-year-old girl told her that the teacher had touched her.
This was also reported to the school the following morning.
The teacher submitted that the testimony of the children sounded rehearsed and that the absence of their mother from the arbitration “showed her intentions to hide the truth”.
The mother allegedly owed the teacher money. The teacher received a summary dismissal.
Buitendag ruled that the teacher was guilty and that ELRC would send a copy of the award to the SACE to consider revoking the teacher’s certificate and declaring him unsuitable, in terms of the Children’s Act, to work with children.
Cape Times