A teacher at Steenberg High School accused of showing learners porn sites for them to use to masturbate to has been found guilty of misconduct.
The onnie was also accused and found guilty of using corporal punishment, sharing details of his sex life with learners, and calling a boy “blackie”.
The pupils, who are now in Grade 9, approached Philisa Abafazi Bethu founder and gender-based violence (GBV) activist Lucinda Evans earlier this year to piemp their Grade 8 teacher.
One learner’s mother says the same male teacher told her daughter, who was 13 at the time, that she looked like someone who is going to fall pregnant in school.
The disgusted mom says the teacher was nasty to her daughter from day one when he put her out of his class.
She says: “He said it was because she was disruptive, but then it went on for a month and a half where he didn't allow her back into the classroom, because she refused to take a hiding over her hands with an iron ruler, so he said he wouldn't teach her.
“I then went to school and spoke to him, he was very arrogant and cocky. I later learnt the principal went to lodge a case against him in the second term of school.”
The mom of the boy who the teacher called “blackie” says her son's confidence took a knock due to the bullying.
She explains: “He also told my son that he was picked up in a dustbin and a darkie.”
Evans says the children shared the explicit details of their experience in the Geography and Math Literacy teacher’s class.
The activist explains: “They told me about how he would separate the girls and the boys and let the boys sit on one side of the classroom, where he would show them porn websites and tell them they could use it to masturbate on.
“He also told them to wear their ties according to the length of the penises.”
Evans has offered counselling to the learners and says she wants the teacher deregistered and banned from teaching.
Western Cape Education Department spokesperson Millicent Merton confirms that the teacher was found guilty of misconduct and will now have to wait on the ruling of the presiding officer for a decision on his punishment.
Merton says: “The educator will not return to the school until the outcome of the sanction.”
Police spokesperson Anelisiwe Manyana says a case of assault common was opened at Steenberg SAPS against the teacher.
She adds: “According to reports the parents and students alleges that a teacher is targeting them and hits the students with a ruler at school. No arrests has been made.”
tracy-lynn.ruiters@inl.co.za