Another KZN school rocked by sexual assault claims

Education officials are set to swoop on the Dlangezwa High School in northern KwaZulu-Natal after it emerged this week that a principal‚ teacher and a security guard at the school had been accused of sexual assault.

The three separate incidents at the Richards Bay school only emerged this week as provincial education officials investigated another Zululand school where a teacher was caught on video severely assaulting female learners in a classroom. Now the department wants to launch an investigation to determine if more than three pupils were victims.

The three Dlangezwa employees are among six education department employees who were suspended on Tuesday on allegations of sexual assault.

KZN education spokesman Kwazi Mthethwa said official processes were underway to ensure that harsh action was taken against the three employees - but that it wouldn't stop at these cases.

"If more people come forward with allegations against the same person‚ then they will be able to do so‚" he said.

"The teacher has even appeared in court and is out on bail. With the principal‚ the process of getting him to appear in court is underway‚" said Mthethwa.

"This happened in the same district where we are trying to deal with the case of corporal punishment. While we were dealing with this incident‚ which caught the eye of the whole nation‚ we decided to deal with all the cases at once‚" said Mthethwa.

The department’s Muzi Mahlambi confirmed that the teacher in the corporal punishment video was also suspended‚ meaning that seven education department employees had been served with suspension letters on Tuesday. All of them were from the same district.

“We will be visiting the district on Wednesday and we will learn more of what is going on in that area‚” he said.