Learners at many Mpumalanga township schools are resorting to boycotts and vandalism to express their concerns.
In just the last four weeks, three high schools have embarked on mass action for issues ranging from accusing a principal of
witchcraft to not liking an acting principal.
Seven pupils are facing criminal charges and 11 have been expelled.
The 11 affected matriculants were repeating Grade 12 for the third time at Lehawu Secondary School in the Msogwaba tribal trust near Nelspruit and were expelled after the school’s disciplinary committee found them guilty of instigating four boycotts this year.
Three of the 11 face charges of public violence and assault after accusing principal Samuel Ngobeni of witchcraft, following the death of three children at the school in separate incidents.
Four pupils from Hlanganani Secondary School in the Dwaleni tribal trust near White River also face charges of public violence and assault for allegedly beating a mentally retarded man and holding him hostage for four hours. They accused the 27-year-old man of beating a school truant to death.
At the time of going to press, classes still hadn’t resumed at Hlanganani Secondary because learners want the charges against their schoolmates dropped.
At a third school, pupils at Masizakhe Senior Secondary School in Breyten near Ermelo boycotted class for three days last month. They’d accused the acting principal, Alex Abbott, of stealing the former principal’s job. During the boycotts, Abbott was forced to scale the school fence and flee to safety. None of the children has been criminally charged.
Congress of South African Students (Cosas) provincial secretary Desmond Moela strongly condemned the behaviour of pupils at the three schools.
‘Gone are the days when pupils use stones to solve problems within our schools,” he said. ‘Stones were the only strong word when negotiating with our previous government, but I don’t believe we need them anymore.”
He said Cosas was involved with the transformation of schools and urged pupils ‘who don’t want to learn, to rather stay away from our schools”.
Provincial education department representative Thomas Msiza said he also didn’t understand why pupils resorted to apartheid-era tactics to resolve their problems.
‘We now live in a free democratic country and I can’t believe there are still people who want to take us back to the apartheid era,” said Msiza.
– African Eye News Service