Gauteng education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said a teacher at a Johannesburg school who told a pupil’s granny she “did not like Coloureds” did not “deserve to be in our education system”.
Lesufi was addressing a group of concerned parents and community members at Fred Norman Secondary School in Ennerdale, Johannesburg, on Tuesday after an altercation between the grandmother and the teacher last Friday.
The woman confronted the teacher after she refused to allow her granddaughter into her class.
During a heated exchange, the teacher told the elderly woman: “I will never wake up liking coloureds like you because you guys are rude; you guys don’t have manners.”
In a three-minute video clip that went viral, the teacher shouted: “You will come and teach that trashy child of yours.” She also swore at the woman and called her “trash”.
Lesufi said he was “truthfully hurt” by the utterances of the teacher. There’s no justification to utter such words. I am disturbed. That teacher needs help so that the mentality can change.”
He assured the parents and community members that “the matter is not being swept under the carpet”.
“I asked the district director to update me every hour so that the matter is dealt with. I felt I owe you that explanation.
“There’s no room for bullying, violence and racism. I don’t want any child to be scared to come to school because someone is bullying them or uttering racist statements.
“I am going to clamp down. The teacher will face the music.”
He instructed officials to make arrangements for a substitute teacher so pupils “don’t suffer because the teacher is suspended”.
“What worries me is the principal indicated to me the learner has been excluded by the teacher for some time. It’s clear we need to give academic support to that learner.”
Lesufi said children’s education must not be disrupted because “if they lose education, they lose everything”.
“This [incident] is completely unacceptable. No-one must defend it and no-one must try to shield it. We must nip it in the bud, tackle it and deal with it. I have given those instructions that it must be done.”
He said he had asked officials to prioritise the case.
“I said to the chief [director] I want to see every document before it’s released to be sure we are doing things procedurally so that I don’t have to come to you to say, ‘We didn’t do it well, the teacher is back here’. You will all kill me.”
He said they are getting a team to find the teacher to serve her with documents.
A community member said an ongoing complaint was that when something happened, the education district officials do not attend to it.
“We feel we are null and void as a coloured community within the south of Johannesburg.”
Another resident asked why the teacher would come to a predominantly coloured school.
“She doesn’t like the people so she’s not going to give her 100% to the coloured learners so our children are being disadvantaged.”
He said they were aware of other teachers who also did not like coloured people.
“The teacher needs to apologise to the community before she gets fired or suspended. She needs to do a written apology because this community has been hurt. Our people are feeling the pain from ‘we hate coloureds’.”
