Africa-Press – South-Africa. A teacher at Refalotse Primary School in Gauteng has been found to have clearly “enjoyed the dynamic of power over a pupil who had not yet reached puberty” when he made sexual advances to her.
In a ruling in March, the Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) found the teacher guilty of sexual misconduct.
According to the ELRC ruling, the English and Technology teacher allegedly sexually harassed a Grade 5 pupil in July 2022 after he “smeared vaseline on her lips and subsequently instructed her to kiss him”.
The teacher also allegedly winked at the pupil in class. In August, while transporting pupils from the Tshwane West district office to their homes in Winterveld, he allegedly brushed the same pupil’s hand and attempted to kiss her.
However, the teacher denied the allegations, saying he didn’t know the pupil.
The teacher said he was known for enforcing discipline at the school, and he would often walk into an “unruly class and tell the learners to sit down and get on with their work”.
He denied winking at the pupil, saying he was in class to “reprimand” the pupils. He said he was “harsh with the learners, and they were afraid of him”.
He admitted that he assisted in transporting pupils to the cultural pageant at the district office in August 2022 but denied that the pupil who complained was among the pupils he transported.
But the ELRC’s part-time senior panellist Mark Hawyes found that the teacher’s version amounted to a bare denial of the misconduct charges against him. He, therefore, rejected the teacher’s evidence.
Hawyes said:
“The first incident was an act of pure opportunism, and the third incident was an orchestrated attempt on the part of the employee to get [the pupil] alone. Attempting to kiss [the pupil] can be classified as nothing other than sexual behaviour on the part of the employee. I find that the employee was trying to groom and manipulate [the pupil] into his way of thinking for possible later and more overt sexual interventions.”
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Hawyes said the pupil proved to be intelligent, alert and observant and did not fabricate her version that the teacher winked at her.
“A wink generally has a furtive sexual connotation and is often one of the first indicators of sexual attraction on the part of the giver of the wink. I find that the employee’s actions were clearly unwanted and created confusion and distaste in the mind of a young pupil.
“[The pupil] did not waste time in revealing the actions of the employee, and her reaction when telling her mother of the events of the third allegation speaks volumes about how she was adversely affected by the actions of the employee.”
Hawyes said no evidence was led that the pupil and others who testified against the teacher had any grudges against him.
“I find that the [teacher] acted in a disgraceful, improper and unacceptable manner in the way he conducted himself (as an adult teacher) towards… (a minor pupil), on three separate occasions.”
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