Central SA
NW Education mum on racism report─── PULANE CHOANE 10:45 Sun, 27 Jan 2019
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The North West Department of Education and Sport Development has become surprisingly silent with regards to releasing the results of a preliminary report on alleged racism in the province’s schools.
This after the department made headlines following two incidents of alleged racism that were reported earlier this month at Laerskool Schweizer-Reneke and Stilfontein schools.
The department had stated that it would release the report last week, however, it is yet to do so.
The report would also provide clarity on whether or not the principal and another teacher at Laerskool Schweizer-Reneke will be suspended following Elana Barkhuizen's vindication by the labour court in Gauteng last week, which ruled that her suspension was unlawful.
Barkhuizen was suspended after a picture she took of children's first day at school went viral on social media as it showed a group of four black pupils being separated from a larger group of white pupils.
The Citizen reports that in court papers lodged by Solidarity, they explained she was only supervising the class while their teacher, Elsabe Olivier, was with a parent. Olivier was not suspended.
In his last interview with OFM News, the spokesperson for the department, Freddy Sepeng, said that the MEC of Education, Sello Lehari, was consulting the department's legal team on the matter.
OFM News has been unable to reach either Sepeng or Lehari, despite various attempts.
In the second alleged racism incident, learning and teaching at Hoërskool Stilfontein outside Klerksdorp were disrupted for more than three days, also following racism allegations.
This came after parents at the school alleged that learners at the school were forced to speak Afrikaans, despite the majority of learners being English speakers.
Other allegations at Hoërskool Stilfontein place both the school's governing body (SGB) and the headmaster at the centre of racism as it was reported by black parents whose children attend at the school, that black learners are deliberately being failed by teachers in some subjects, while their white counterparts are passed.