HRC complaint follows: Witch hunt at Pretoria school a timely BELA warning
23 October 2024
Solidarity plans to file a complaint with the Human Rights Commission (HRC) on Monday against the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) regarding their handling of a racial situation at the Pretoria High School for Girls in July this year.
In this complaint, the HRC will be asked to further investigate the actions of the Gauteng Education Department (GDE) as well as the provincial MEC for Education, Matome Chiloane, and Gauteng Premier, Panyaza Lesufi.
According to Solidarity, these parties’ overeagerness, which spurred them on to look for instances of racism in vain, is also a good example of how damaging more government intervention in school matters can be for schools, learners and teachers.
Solidarity considers the premature suspension of 12 learners from this school for their participation in a WhatsApp group discussion, as well as the suspension and forced transfer of this school’s principal and deputy principal, as typical of the GDE and its race-obsessed MEC, Matome Chiloane.
Contrary to the GDE’s untried allegations about racism, a disciplinary hearing found that no racism was present and that the learners were innocent.
Nevertheless, the Gauteng Education Department, Chiloane and the Gauteng Premier and former MEC for Education, Panyaza Lesufi, are fanatical about more centralised control over schools, and they are advocating the expeditious implementation of the articles of the Basic Education Act (BELA) on language and admissions policy.
According to Johan Botha, head of the Solidarity Teachers’ Network, the events highlight the necessity of teachers, governing bodies and parents’ joint protest action against the implementation of BELA.
“In view of these events at Pretoria High School for Girls, we can clearly see why legislation should specifically keep politicians out of schools. Under a BELA instruction, officials such as those involved in this matter will be able to decide whether an Afrikaans school should be anglicised or not.
“We now know that they do not consider it necessary to show evidence before they intervene in a school’s matters, and we must thus expect that they will also deal with language and admission policy in the same irresponsible way,” Botha said.
In a recent report from the Thabo Mbeki Foundation, the GDE is also criticised for its abuse of power in its craving search for racism at the school, which then did not exist.
The principal, Phillipa Erasmus, remains suspended pending the outcome of an independent investigation into “a culture of racism” by the GDE, as announced by Chiloane.
Solidarity says these events highlight how important it is to demonstrate now, while there is still an opportunity to do so, how enormous the collective opposition to BELA is.
Therefore, people are encouraged to set aside time to participate in the BELA protest march on 5 November. Protesters will gather at the Voortrekker Monument from 08:00 in the morning and thousands have already registered. (See the registration page for the #BELAProtest here.)
“Just as these officials ‘intervened’ at Pretoria High School for Girls without there being evidence of racism, they will pretend that under a BELA instruction they are ‘intervening’ to anglicise schools that do not meet the larger school district’s language needs.
“We know BELA will be their weapon to do just that, and race bullies like Chiloane and Lesufi will not hesitate to use it against Afrikaans and Afrikaans schools as soon as possible,” Botha said.
Solidarity believes that a complaint against these parties at the HRC, and demands for further investigation, is justified as the false accusations of racism have violated the rights of learners and officials of the school.
More information about the HRC complaint will be issued soon.
Issued by Johan Botha, Head: Solidarity Teachers’ Network, 23 October 2024
