Sex pest teachers in KZN 'tip of iceberg'

Durban -The dismissal of eight Education Department officials for sexual misconduct was welcome, but only the tip of the iceberg, education stakeholders have cautioned.

This was in reaction to the weekend announcement of the dismissals by the department.

Spokesperson Kwazi Mthethwa said seven teachers and an administrator had been dismissed for sexual misconduct. “The affected officials were given fair disciplinary hearings before they were finally expelled from the Department of Education in KwaZulu-Natal.”

Education MEC Kwazi Mshengu said: “Children should be safe at school and with their teachers. Teachers and other adults supervising young people build trust through their close contact every day, so it is particularly damaging when that trust is abused or broken with sexually inappropriate behaviour.”

Vee Gani, chairperson of the KZN Parents’ Association, welcomed the dismissals but said there were many more cases of people engaging in sexual misconduct, but with no repercussions.

“There is no room in schools for sexual predators,” he said. Gani said parents sent their children to school for an education; to a place where they should be protected, which was not the case.

He lamented the drawn-out process of firing sex-pest teachers. “They need to get rid of such people immediately.”

Gani said he knew of cases where pupils had been abused by school officials in the past, with no action being taken. “Parents are not going to keep quiet now,” he said.

Childline KZN operations manager Adeshini Naicker said children should be made aware that gone were the days when they could totally trust teachers.

She said children who were victims of abuse often grew up to be abusers themselves as they carried the trauma they experienced into adulthood.

Naicker said pupils had been abused at schools for years, but people were only becoming aware of the issue now.

Professor Labby Ramrathan, director of the School of Education Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said sexual violence was an old issue in schools.

The power teachers had over pupils would result in the children succumbing to them, he said. However, policies and laws had now changed to a point where teachers no longer exerted as great an influence as before. The problem was that the laws were not always consistently applied, he said.

Ramrathan said teachers were taught about their conduct around children while they were studying for their qualifications. This was also communicated to them before they started working at schools.

It was not only the Education Department that could bring change, but other departments, like Social Development and the police, also had a role to play, he said.

Daily News