The disciplinary hearing of a Montana teacher who allegedly beat a seven-year-old boy is expected to be held soon.
|||Cape Town - The disciplinary hearing of a Montana teacher who allegedly beat a seven-year-old boy is expected to be held by the Western Cape Education Department on Monday.
Spokesman Paddy Attwell said the department had investigated the case and charged the teacher with serious misconduct in terms of Section 17 of the Employment of Educators Act.
In May, the Daily Voice reported that the boy, who attends St Joseph’s Home in Montana, and reportedly has epilepsy, had arrived home with his lower body covered in bruises.
“In terms of procedure, the presiding officer must provide the outcome within five working days after the conclusion of the disciplinary hearing. Dismissal is a mandatory sanction in the case of conviction of serious assault, in terms of Section 17 of the Act,” said Attwell.
Earlier this month, the South African Human Rights Commission said it had dealt with cases in which pupils’ eardrums were ruptured, a pupil was blinded, and one in which a pupil was beaten and died from his injuries.
At the time, Lindiwe Mokate, the commissioner responsible for basic education, said that in many of the corporal punishment cases the parents of the school children returned to the commission saying that they did not want to proceed with the case.
She said that in some instances the parents did not have a choice of several schools to send the child to and dropped the case because of fear of victimisation when the child returned to school.
The department received 125 allegations of corporal punishment during the 2012/13 financial year.
A total of 117 cases were reported during the previous financial year.
The department uses the following definition of corporal punishment: “Any deliberate act against a child that inflicts pain or physical discomfort to contain him or her.
“This includes, but is not limited to, spanking, slapping, pinching, paddling, or hitting a child with a hand or with an object, denying or restricting a child’s use of the toilet, denying meals, drink, heat and shelter, pushing or pulling a child with force, and forcing the child to do exercise”.
ilse.fredericks@inl.co.za
Cape Argus