Teachers accused of inciting pupil protests at Samuel Ntlebi Primary School have written to the district department of education to explain their side of the story and to clear their names.
Teachers accused of inciting pupil protests at Samuel Ntlebi Primary School have written to the district department of education to explain their side of the story and to clear their names.
Thenjiswa Rwanqa and Baroetsane Daniels submitted a joint letter on Tuesday 15 October to a departmental task team that addresses internal school disputes.
This is after all kinds of drama unfolded at the school in the past week, starting last Friday 11 October when some of the older pupils challenged the redeployment of two of their favourite teachers.
Grade 4s, 5s and 6s at the Joza school were up in arms and in an interesting turn of events on Monday 14 October they turned on their principal, demanding that she resign.
Some pupils accused principal Dumakazi Myemane of assaulting them with brooms, and of pinching and slapping them.
Now foundation-phase teachers are at loggerheads with intermediate-phase teachers, blaming them for stirring up strike action among the children and bringing the school into disrepute.
Keletso Phohleli, a foundation phase teacher, claims that the pupils were being coached by teachers.
She said, "When I said to one of the pupils that they should go to whoever their coach is and ask them whether the coach had ever engaged in a strike as a primary school pupil, to my surprise a certain teacher came bursting through my door and confronted me for what I had told the pupil".
Phohleli said this was a clear indication that pupils were being influenced by their teachers.
Also on Tuesday, the principal came to Grocott's Mail's offices to set the record straight.
Myemane dismissed rumours of tensions within the school and denied allegations that she's causing a rift by giving preferential treatment to foundation-phase teachers.
Yet later that day a meeting was held between the school's governing body, parents, pupils and Robin Solwandle, an education development officer from the Grahamstown District Department of Education.
A police officer was called in to maintain order in the tense meeting held in the school hall.
Myemane started the meeting by clarifying how the redeployment process works, seeing as this seems to be at the root of the protests and tension at the school.
Redeployment kicks in once the numbers of pupils dwindle and teachers are left with less than 29 pupils in a class. Myemene said the required ratio is one teacher to 29 pupils.
"The intermediate phase currently has a total of 128 pupils and five teachers," Myemane said, "and when divided each teacher faces around 26 pupils and that is below the benchmark."
When Solwandle stormed into the meeting 40 minutes late he was spitting fire and lashed out at the teachers rumoured to be encouraging pupil disobedience.
"No primary school pupil voluntarily goes on strike," he said. "These children are too young to understand anything and if I hear something similar to this and we (the department) gets proof that someone was behind it then we will fire them."
He declared Wednesday a normal school day, "and failure to do so, then heads will roll".
The teachers say they are still awaiting a response from the task team.
