WEDNESDAY, 6.00PM
RACIAL clashes have blown up at a Pretoria high school, closed since Tuesday after brawling when two black pupils allegedly insulted a white teacher. White pupils at Elandspoort High School in Pretoria West were sent home at 10.00am this morning after renewed fighting, and while principal Hennie Breedt addressed the black pupils.
The dispute appeared to have begun on Monday, when a woman teacher was insulted by black pupils after she reprimanded them. Black pupils said the woman’s son, a pupil at the school, began attacking black pupils at random, helped by classmates armed with hockey sticks. Parents appear to have joined in, with one arriving at the school grounds armed with a rifle.
White teachers blamed the decline in classroom discipline since the abolition of corporal pubishment. Black pupils have said they refuse to return to school until the white pupils they accuse of starting the brawls, are expelled.