Tag: black schools

Extent of black matric cheating exposed

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga has revealed the extent to which teachers helped matric pupils cheat in last year’s exams.

Motshekga yesterday disclosed some of the evidence given during hearings into group cheating at some KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape matric exam centres, where only black schools are implicated.

She said teachers and principals who encouraged group copying, would be criminally charged.

The continuing investigation will now focus on teachers, principals and invigilators.

A KwaZulu-Natal pupil wrote on an exam answer sheet: “We can now continue.”

This, according to Motshekga, “clearly indicated . that someone was dictating answers to them”.

She said that in other instances teachers had simply walked into exam rooms and told invigilators to leave so that they could help their pupils.

“The papers are opened at the school, so teachers would not have had sight of the paper before. So, I think, as the teacher looked at the paper, she found there was a section she had not taught the class and quickly rushed to the exam room to dictate it to them.”

A KwaZulu-Natal pupil admitted during the hearings to cribbing.

Motshekga said the exam results of pupils found guilty of group copying would be nullified.

The department launched the investigation into cheating allegations involving 153 exam centres in Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng earlier this year.

More than 3000 pupils implicated in group copying will sit for this year’ s exams in October and November.

Only one KwaZulu-Natal pupil, among a group of 2307, was cleared of cheating charges; 56 confessed.

Of the 720 implicated in Eastern Cape, 26 were cleared and 17 confessed.

Former acting director-general of the Department of Basic Education Paddy Padayachee said security would be improved.

Source: timeslive

English crèche principal films toddlers having sex

A 68-year-old black principal of a Johannesburg crèche, pleaded guilty to a charge of compelled rape after telling two young children to have sex and allegedly filmed the act.

The owner of the creche in Alexandra who ordered two toddlers to re-enact a sex scene after they were caught in a toilet and filmed them has been sentenced.

Daphne Sithembe, whose creche has since been closed, was given a five-year suspended sentence for compelled rape and her name will be submitted to the National Register for Sex Offenders, a move that will bar her from working with children in the future.

Sithembe was also told that whenever she seeks employment that involved working with children, she was obliged to disclose her conviction, failing which, her sentence would automatically kick in.

The black principal called the children to her office and, in the presence of other teachers, allegedly asked them to re-enact the sexual intercourse. She allegedly took out her phone and recorded the act.

She allegedly showed the recording to the children’s parents. The girl’s parents complained to the police.

Compelled rape is defined in the Sexual Offences Act as unlawfully and intentionally compelling someone to commit an act of sexual penetration with another person without the consent of either.

The prescribed minimum sentence in a case in which the victim is younger than 16 is life imprisonment. But a court can impose a lighter sentence if there are circumstances compelling enough to justify it.

Thebe Mohatle, spokesman for the Gauteng Department of Social Development, could not yesterday say whether the department had taken disciplinary steps against the principal or whether the crèche was being investigated.

According to sources at the Department they are not investigating the matter.

In another shocking twist, Dumisile Nala, national executive officer of Childline, said the youngsters’ behaviour was ‘nothing unusual’, adding that they were likely acting out something they saw on TV.

In mitigation of sentence, Sithebe’s lawyer said that she had pleaded guilty to the charge in order not to waste the court’s time, and agreed that it was a serious offence that involved young children. The lawyer said she had shown remorse for her actions.

Passing sentence, the court said although she had admitted guilt, the courts were obliged to pass stiff sentences in cases of child abuse.

Source: timeslive.co.za/alexnews.co.za