Ngakaxa Village in Idutywa in the Eastern Cape is riddled with high teenage pregnancy cases.
Now a school principal and teacher at Bonkolo Senior Secondary School have been suspended on allegations of raping learners, impregnating them and forcing some to have abortions.
The swift response by the Department of Education to the allegations on Monday was to ensure learning and teaching would not significantly be affected by the suspensions, as learners are writing mid-year examinations, the department’s spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima told Scrolla.Africa.
“It is important we demonstrate to these learners that government is not neglecting them; so we take the allegation itself very seriously. We want these children to see that we take their wellbeing seriously.” They are offering psycho-social support for learners to cope and try to deal with what has affected them and their peers.
“We are doing processes to ensure those who are found guilty face the full wrath of the law and won’t ever be able to teach again. These two educators have been suspended pending investigation.”
They moved swiftly because “we were scared that if we allowed too much time around this it would affect the learners’ results, so we had to jump in quickly”.
“We will call upon all our parents to continue to work with us in ensuring that these things are dealt with appropriately. We all work towards a great outcome from the children as we prepare them for the examination. We all need to pull our weight and ensure we don’t lose the child along the way,” he said.
Children’s rights advocacy group Khula EC led by Petros Majola visited the school yesterday after receiving many calls from concerned people saying children are being impregnated by teachers at school. They met with parents and teachers, Majola told Scrolla.Africa.
“I received a call from a media organisation saying Bonkolo SSS is one of the leading schools in learner pregnancy, so I went there… this shouldn’t deteriorate the learning environment.
“But I was surprised to find that parents still have not opened any cases with the police. I am glad to see that at least the department is responding swiftly to the accusations. Hopefully, so will the police,” Majola said.