Matrics instructed to direct rape scene

Anti-rape activists, education experts and parents are enraged that matric drama pupils were asked to direct a rape scene during their final written exam.

A compulsory question in the dramatic art exam paper instructed pupils: "Describe how you would get the actor portraying Simon [a rapist] to perform this act to maximise the horror of the rape to the audience."

The question was for six marks and was part of a 15-mark section based on an extract from the play Tshepang, inspired by the real-life rape of a nine-month-old baby.

The extract focused on a scene in which the character Simon ''rapes'' a baby using a loaf of bread and a broomstick.

"Everyone was in shock that we were asked such a question," said a Durban pupil. "It was so gruesome and we were not sure how to answer it. We didn't expect something like that in a drama examination."

The pupil was worried because she did not know if she was allowed to refer to the broom as a penis in her answer.

Another pupil said he "felt a bit sick. I wasn't prepared for that question and it took me a while to answer it because I felt uncomfortable."

He was concerned the question would have affected any classmate who had been raped. "I didn't want to ask but I am sure someone in my class must have been traumatised."

The pupil's mother said too many South African children were directly or indirectly faced with the trauma of rape daily. She believed the question was improper and insensitive as some pupils might have been made to relive what went on in their own homes.

"Imagine the child who is being raped at home. How would she have felt answering the question?"

Drama therapist and director Warren Nebe said the examiners had not considered the fear the question might cause in pupils.

It was "entirely inappropriate to interrogate that subject matter with young people in an uncontained environment. The exam is very impersonal. It is a sit-down written examination. It's not people sitting down and talking [things] through and being facilitated.

"Writing is quite an intimate process. So the examiners have no idea if they have triggered flashbacks or fear. We are all affected by rape in South Africa so it doesn't matter if that person has first-hand experience or not," Nebe said.

The question was "incredibly complex" for a 17- or 18-year-old as they would have had to imagine being the actor playing the rapist.

"From a drama therapy point you are drawing the person closer into the subject and if the intention was to try and get the pupils to empathise, I think that is the wrong way to go.

"I think the intention was to test them on their theatre skills but there were many other things they could have tested them about," Nebe said.

Few directors were able to work on "such a sophisticated symbolic level with professional actors. When you are working with trauma you have to be incredibly careful about how the actors engage with the material. Debriefing and processing have to be done ." Nebe added.

Education expert Graeme Bloch said he was shocked at the question, even though he understood what the paper tried to achieve.

Papers are set by examiners in the Department of Basic Education and moderated by internal moderators.

Umalusi, the quality assurance council for education and training, then moderates and approves the papers.

Umalusi CEO Mafu Rakometsi said he would discuss the paper with the subject specialists responsible for approving it.

"I need to find out their reasoning before I can comment on the appropriateness of the question."

The Department of Basic Education failed to respond to e-mails and phone calls.