An Mpumalanga teacher accused of torturing a learner has finally been dismissed and struck off the provincial teachers’ roll.
In June the Teacher reported how Zandile Nkosi (42), a teacher at Tiga Primary School in Daantjie near Nelspruit, brutally tortured a learner with the help of her husband and two friends.
The boy had been accused of stealing Nkosi’s handbag with R2 700 in it on October 24 last year.
He was allegedly sjambokked, dunked in the Crocodile River and burnt on his body and genitals with molten plastic and cigarettes by Nkosi and her accomplices. According to one of the nurses who treated the boy after the assault, he may never be able to father a child because of the injuries to his genitals.
Nkosi was suspended with full pay on February 19 – four months after the incident – and it took another five months for the disciplinary process to take place.
Nkosi and five co-accused also currently face criminal charges in the Nelspruit regional court of attempted murder and abduction.
The teacher, her customary husband Robert Ngubane (31), and their two friends Sam Ntsibande (29) and Bongani Nkuna (31), have not been asked to plead and are out on bail of R800 each.
The other two who are charged with being accomplices are police officers. The four accused had taken the pupil to the local police station initially, where two officers on duty allegedly gave them permission to take the boy away for questioning.
The two officers are Sergeant Clement Magagula and Inspector Bhekifa Daniel Shobede who work at the KaNyamazane police station outside Nelspruit.
All six accused will appear again on August 22.
After the incident, the boy’s parents withdrew him and his twin sisters from the school. They’ve since registered the children at another school.
The boy’s new teachers say the teenager is still suffering from the trauma, however, and has become a loner and is often absent from school.
According to Mpumalanga’s education department representative, Pat Zwane, ‘In the past five years the province has removed more than 10 teachers from the provincial and national teachers’ rolls for unprofessional practices against learners that are in contravention of the South African Schools’ Act”.
He says Nkosi could appeal against the decision to strike her off the provincial teachers’ roll.
Provincial education MEC Craig Padayachee has warned ‘drastic steps” will be taken against educators who physically harm their learners.
He adds that teachers have to follow proper disciplinary procedures when dealing with cases of misconduct by pupils, failing which they face dismissal.