Non-Government Organisation, Khula Community Development, has described the conduct of a 35-year-old Mdingi Junior Secondary school educator in Lusikisiki, Eastern Cape, as a disgrace.
The male educator allegedly forced more than 20 schoolboys to masturbate and ejaculate into a container. The educator has since been arrested. Classes were temporarily suspended after angry parents allegedly threatened to take the law into their own hands.
Khula Community Development’s director, Petros Majola, wants the classes to resume.
“The fact that classes have been temporarily suspended is totally out of order and we have since approached the MEC. We trust that the MEC will for sure do something to protect the education of our children. I continue asking myself what is this educator going to do with the semen that he collected from these boys. Remember that there are more than 20 boys involved, (it is) as if it was someone who was filling up a petrol tank. What was he going to do with them?”
The provincial Education Department spokesperson, Malibongwe Mtima, says learners were provided with counselling and classes will resume soon.
“As the Department, on getting allegations that one of our educators was involved in misconduct that led to learners masturbating, the first thing we did was to provide counselling to the learners; number two, to suspend the educator but as the matter escalated and community intervened we ended up suspending schooling and managing and monitoring the situation. As we speak, things have subsided and things are normal, so schooling should resume,” says Mtima.
Meanwhile, four months ago the Child Protection Program launched a Child Protection week in Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape.