An incident in the Eastern cape involving 3 disabled learners who were sexually assaulted has led to the enquires about teachers and their competence. The 3 learners were allegedly sexually assaulted by their classmates while they were on a school trip.
This has raised questions about the teachers supervising the trip as well as teachers' conduct in general after multiple cases of mismanaged finances, serious misconduct and sexual assault.
In response to this incident, Ms Bongiwe Pricilla Mbinqo-Gigaba (chairperson of the parliament's portfolio's committee of education) has emphasised that we need to be humanly about the situation and not blame the teachers.
According to a study conducted by Dr Cecile de Villiers, from Stellenbosch University, she believes that legislative amendments are needed to regulate the performance of teachers.
These amendments will address these issues at the implementation stage, which will eventually ensure that the legislative framework is adequate and effectively addresses misconduct by teachers.
The employment of educators act regulates the performance of departmental educators in public schools which includes an array of sanctions but does not include dismissal. The most common sanctions for teachers include punitive suspension or fines instead of dismissals, even in cases of serious misconduct or sexual assault.
This was demonstrated when an incident involving a teacher accused of serious misconduct was only given a R10 000 fine and was still allowed to continue employment at the school where the incident had occurred.
Dr De Villiers points out the fact that there is not enough being done to remove these teachers from the sector when they are found guilty of serious misconduct.
Some of the legislative amendments that Dr De Villiers suggested include pre-employment checks of teachers, as some of these teachers are still able to find employment at other public schools despite being found guilty of misconduct.
Another suggestion made was that the provisions in place that deal with misconduct should be repealed and replaced with an amendment that details the description of misconduct and also contains possible suitable sanctions that include removal or dismissal.
