A teacher from Gordon Primary School was sentenced to one-year imprisonment suspended for five years at the Alexandra Magistrates’ Court for assaulting a pupil with a hosepipe.
In July last year , a seven-year-old child was referred by the South African Police Service to Women and Men Against Child Abuse’s (WMACA) Kidz Clinic in Alexandra after her mother opened a case against the teacher.
The clinic’s social worker, Pearl Nyamende, said the young girl’s mother decided to press charges against the teacher as the Department of Education had not responded to her plea to investigate her daughter’s claims that the teacher had hit her numerous times with a hosepipe.
“This sentence is a warning to teachers who are abusive towards their pupils; and the Department of Education must monitor their teachers behavior in the classroom, especially after receiving reports from parents. An X-ray had confirmed that the child had a dislocated finger due to the beatings,” said Nyemende.
According to Nyamende, the teacher told the court that she hit the child twice and she denied that the child’s injuries were caused by the beatings. A child, called in by the teacher as a witness, broke down crying during court proceedings, changing her testimony to confirm that the teacher had harshly assaulted her peer.
Germaine Vogel, WMACA advocacy manager said, “We at WMACA and Kidz Clinic applaud the court for sending out a stern warning to the educationist, and we applaud the mother and her daughter for their courage to speak out and endure the court process.”
