Reiger Park High School returning to normal following sex scandal

The Reiger Park High School in Johannesburg is returning to normality following sex scandal allegedly involving its principal, the Democratic Alliance in Gauteng said on Monday.

The DA spokesperson for education in the province, Khume Ramulifho, said on Monday during a visit to the school that it was receiving adequate assistance from the Gauteng department of education.

However, Ramulifho said structures needed to be put in place to address incidents of such a nature. “The DA has made an inquiry to deal with how such matters will be dealt with. Learners don’t have support. We believe there should be a hotline where the learners can report.”

The visit follows pictures and videos of the principal of the school allegedly performing sexual acts in his office going viral.

Ramulifho said that that there was a link with school dropout rates and sexual assault, and the DA felt more social workers needed to be deployed to schools as not many children were able to express their issues at their homes.

“After the incident the department organised counselling and sent officials to the school to assist,” the school said. “A suggestion box where children dropped their issues has been created so we know what needs to be addressed as a school.”

The school said a new timetable had been implemented as two educators who were implicated in the sex scandal had been summoned to the district office.

“It’s difficult, but the parents do support us. There’s a confidence that we need to regain with parents,” the school added.

They said extra classes would be resuming from Tuesday to assist with the backlog that was experienced following the incident.

“After the incident we had many disruptions. Slowly but surely we getting back to normality after 20 teachers were interviewed by the MEC’s lawyers for investigations.”

“Teachers that are trusted by learners were allocated with the responsibility to be told when there is a similar matter and they will blow the whistle.”

The school said following the allegations, the principal notified them that he would be resigning to attend to his personal businesses.

“He indicated that he would resign and in the interim he would hand over his duties to the deputy while his post was being advertised.”

– African News Agency (ANA)

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