SADTU calls for toughest action against Ekucabangeni Secondary School teacher who sexually abused a learner

19 August 2016

SADTU has, like everyone in the country, learned about the disgusting video making rounds showing a teacher having a sexual intercourse with a learner. As a Union of disciplined professionals and committed in ensuring that we are real agents of change and champions of People’s Education for People’s Power, we do not believe that a situation like the one portrayed in the video can be acceptable and tolerated. SADTU in her Code of Conduct puts it clear how each educator and SADTU member are expected to behave and conduct themselves. It is high time that even the union itself distinguishes between what must be defended and not.

It is high time that the unions separate between teachers and animals. We need to free our unions from these criminals who act like animals. It is not acceptable that unions can be expected to defend what they have made clear that they fight against. We want to make it categorically clear that SADTU stands as part and parcel of the society. We have a vision to build a better society and that society can only be built by responsible cadres of SADTU. Teachers have always carried a stature of respect and good morality in society and that stature SADTU wants to restore and retains at all material times. We therefore cannot condone the wrongs committed by any educator irrespective of the union affiliation. We must also remember that educators are also parents. No parent can accept such conduct imposed upon their children.

Parents entrust us with their children with the hope that we will protect them from any attack, violence and evil acts. In so saying as SADTU we are disappointed by what we have seen. The video degrades the profession and, as proud disciplined members, we must stand up in defence of the profession and all the children given to us by trusting parents. We as members of society first, parents second and then as members of SADTU, cannot allow such degradation of morality and criminal elements to run free in our schools. Schools are places where parents have entrusted the state to deliver quality education and instil good morals to the next generation. It is therefore imperative that this remains as such.

We call on the society at large to work with us in exposing such rouge elements masquerading as professionals but demeaning the noble teaching profession. As an organisation, ours is to fight for better conditions not only for educators but for learners as well. Therefore it cannot be correct that perpetrators can be inside the school gates entrusted with the responsibility to take good care of learners and they in turn abuse them. We also heavily rely in every parent, educator and learners to advance our struggle against abuse of the most vulnerable in our society.

The school is the critical site of the society which must be considered sacrosanct and defended even during times of war.

For the benefit of the defenceless and most vulnerable kids of our nation, we must collectively commit that never again shall it happen under our watch that we shall determinedly be visible in our schools that we shall ensure that indeed education, as declared by the President, becomes manifestly a societal matter in which all of us shall have interest.

SADTU calls on all educators particularly at Ekucabangeni Secondary school to rally behind the affected learners and ensure that they are supported through and beyond this ordeal.

This teacher has shamed and brought the profession into disrepute. Had he been a SADTU member, we would have expelled him from the Union with immediate effect. We don’t need such cancer in our schools.

In the month of August where rights of women and the girl child are being emphasised it is a travesty of justice that a learner was brutally abused in this manner by an educator. We cannot afford to keep quiet when amongst us there are these criminals. It is now or never. SADTU supports the swift action by the department of education in the province.

We call upon the South African Council for Educators (SACE) to take the harshest action against this perpetrator and strike him off the roll. We further call on the law to take its course and he be charged with statutory rape.

SADTU SAYS NO TO VIOLENCE IN SCHOOLS.

SADTU SAYS NO TO RAPE IN SCHOOLS;

SADTU SAYS NO TO ANY ABUSE OF LEARNERS IN SCHOOLS

Issued by Nomarashiya Caluza, Provincial Secretary, SADTU, 19 August 2016