Tebogo Msimanga |
Gauteng’s MEC for Education, Panyaza Lesufi, has welcomed the immediate suspension of a Northriding Secondary School educator who is at the heart of an alleged racist incident that took place at the school this week.
Lesufi visited the school on Friday 7 May 2021 and said “as a Department, we are extremely disappointed about this incident – racism will never be tolerated in our schools.”.
Lesufi said initial investigations indicate that an altercation over noise-making occurred on Thursday 6 May 2021 between a Grade 8 learner and an Afrikaans educator.
The educator is alleged to have sprayed the learner with sanitiser and he left the classroom to report the matter to another teacher in the neighbouring class.
It is alleged that the accused educator followed and started to engage violently with the learner, further spraying the learner with sanitizer all over his body and allegedly calling him with a k-word. The violence stopped only after the intervention of the other teacher.
MEC Lesufi stressed that educators must always teach and guide learners, not fight them.
