Screengrab from a video showing a Grade 11 pupil and teacher grabbing each other by the collar in Middelburg, Mpumalanga.
The incident happened about a month ago at Hoërskool Middelburg but the video is currently being circulated among residents of the town, the Middelburg Observer reports.
At the start of the video, the teacher, Jacques Ferreira, can be seen putting a bunch of keys down on a desk and then trying to loosen the boy’s hand from where the former had grabbed him by the collar, while saying “I told you to let go”. The two carry on talking, but it’s not possible to hear what they’re saying to each other.
Later, some of the pupil’s classmates tell him to let go of the teacher, and the person who shot the video can be heard telling the pupil: “Just let go. This isn’t clever, man.”
The teacher and pupil then shove each other, whereupon the pupil starts to push the teacher backwards, before another pupil joins the fray and pulls the pupil from the teacher. The video stops there.
The principal of Hoërskool Middelburg, Johan Stronkhorst, said he didn’t want to comment on the matter, except that it happened during school hours and that it had been handled.
An anonymous source said the altercation started when a bunch of keys was being thrown around the classroom and the teacher confiscated them.
“I feel very sorry for him. What do you do in a situation like that? If he had lifted his hands first against that pupil he would’ve lost his job,” the source said.
Apparently the buttons of the teacher’s shirt were torn off in the scuffle.
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