Africa-Press – South-Africa. A Gauteng teacher has been served with a suspension letter and will face a disciplinary hearing following an altercation with the grandparent of a pupil at Fred Norman Secondary School in Ennerdale, Johannesburg.
During the altercation, the teacher – who is black – called the grandmother trash and stated she “does not like coloureds”.
Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi later visited the school and told the parents he was disturbed by the events that took place.
He added there was no justification for someone in that position and with that responsibility to utter such words.
In an interview with eNCA, Lesufi said his visit to the school was prompted by the school governing body and school management which claimed the matter was beyond their control and wanted the education department to intervene.
Fred Norman school racism storm: ‘Mentality’ must change, says Panyaza Lesufi
He added he had discovered the altercation occurred because the pupil had been barred from attending classes by the teacher due to her differences with the pupil. This prompted the grandmother’s visit to the school.
“The grandmother went there to find out what the problem was because children are about to write examinations, and therefore if they had to write that test on an assessment, the pupil would fail,” Lesufi said.
Given the severe nature of the matter, Lesufi told eNCA the teacher was removed from the school pending an investigation.
He said strict protocol had to be followed before the teacher could be issued a letter of suspension and invited to a hearing.
Lesufi confirmed the teacher was moved to a district office and served with the necessary documents.
In a statement, family spokesperson Dean Daniel called out Lesufi, saying he was deflecting attention away from the incident.
‘You are trash, I don’t like coloureds,’ Gauteng teacher tells pupil’s grandmother in heated altercation
“We are deeply saddened and astounded at the obvious racial bias shown by the ‘honourable’ Lesufi in his eNCA interview about the incident on 12 August at Fred Norman Secondary.
“We had hoped against hope that this would not happen, and we have avoided such biased references in all of our communiqués thus far. The teacher said that my mother-in-law was trash and backed it up a few times by asserting her naked hatred for ‘coloureds’ as a group.
Daniels said:
He added Lesufi’s knee-jerk defence of “certain” teachers as in this case and his categoric condemnation of others deflected attention away from the incident and sought to elicit sympathy for the perpetrator.
“He has not once commented on the fact that a teacher could be so revoltingly rude to an elderly lady, nor does he comment on the denying of the humanity of an entire group of South Africans in such hateful terms.”
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