Sans Souci teacher and student open assault cases against each other

Police confirmed on Wednesday that the Sans Souci Girls' High teacher who was filmed slapping a learner in a heated altercation has opened a case of assault against the pupil.

The pupil’s mother, however, has opened a case against the teacher.

“Two cases of assault were opened for investigation by Claremont SAPS - one by the parent of the learner and another one by a 33-year-old teacher," said Sergeant Noloyiso Rwexana.

"No one has been arrested at this stage.”

In an interview broadcast by eNCA, the mother of the pupil claimed to have run into the teacher at the police station as she was opening her case.

Asked how she felt about the incident, the woman said she was shocked, disappointed and upset. She said the school had informed her that her child should not come to classes on Wednesday, but she wanted her child back at school by Thursday. She said she would wait for confirmation from the school on whether her child could return.

The altercation between her child and the teacher was caught on cellphone. 

In the video, the teacher can be seen and heard embroiled in an argument with the Grade 9 girl over a book. The teacher grabs the learner's cellphone from her hands, telling her it was against the school's conduct to have it during class. 

Matters quickly escalate as both the teacher and the child accuse each other of swearing. The teacher tells the pupil to leave the class, but she refuses.

The girl says something inaudible and the teacher replies, "Are you swearing at me? You are speaking a different language in my class!"

The teacher then switches to Afrikaans, pushes the desk towards the pupil and gets close to her face. The pupil pushes the desk back towards the teacher and gets up.

The teacher shouts, "Are you hitting me?" She then slaps the pupil and continues, "You push me! You swear at me!"

Following this incident, Western Cape education MEC Debbie Schäfer said they were investigating the incident. She said ill discipline at schools would not be tolerated but "corporal punishment is unacceptable".

Schäfer said the teacher in the video had been appointed by the school governing body (SGB), which would meet to discuss disciplinary steps.

"I am aware that some commentators on social media platforms are immediately assuming that the incident is race related," she said.

"While I understand their anger at the images displayed on the edited version of the video, we cannot assume that this was racially motivated. We ask that the public allow the SGB to investigate the incident before such conclusions are made."

Some learners at the school staged a protest on Wednesday in support of the teacher, saying the incident was not race related. 

The Progressive Professionals Forum (PPF), an association of professionals in the Western Cape, said it would report the teacher to the police for assault and write to the SA Council for Educators (SACE) to request an investigation into the teacher's conduct.

 "PPF is disturbed and appalled by the disgusting manner the teacher carried herself in the incident in the video," they said in a statement.

The forum said learners were free to speak any language of their choosing in South African schools, so long as it did not interfere with the teaching and learning process. "Therefore the condemnation of the learner for speaking a different language in class is condemned in the strongest terms. It smacks of racism and intolerance,” said the group.

This is not the first time the school has made headlines. In 2016, pupils accused it of victimising them for speaking languages such as Xhosa.