A black Venda parent who filmed the excursion that has landed Curro Roodeplaat Private School in another racial segregation scandal, described the footage as disturbing and said he would take his child out of the school.
Dr Christopher Madumi Ramalingela said, “Initially, we just wanted to document our little girl’s trip and were shocked at what we saw.
“My wife was very disturbed by what she saw on the field trip. She had no idea the children were loaded onto the buses in that fashion.”
Ramalinga said he tried to put what he had seen out of his mind and convince himself it was no big deal, but it kept worrying him.
“The video was taken on June 3. It’s only in the last week that I showed it to friends after I just could not get the images of the children separated like that out of my head.
“I needed to hear other people’s opinion on the matter to assess how justified my concern was,” Ramalinga said.
He said, “It is a horrible situation and I can’t let my child continue to be subjected to such an environment.”
Ramalinga is looking for a new school for his daughter.
He said he is not satisfied by the school’s excuse that the children were merely separated by language.
Ramalinga was also not happy that there were no black teachers at the school, despite 66 percent of children at Curro schools being black.
“It’s ridiculous to think that they can’t find any qualified black teachers,” Ramalinga said.
When asked what he thought of Afrikaans and English-speaking classes being separated, Ramalinga said this is a separation parents had begrudgingly accepted in the past, but he did not believe it was necessary.
“Afrikaans-speaking people have always been very keen to have their own schools and universities,” he said.
“Maybe they know better, but I’m Venda and I think if I had just stuck to knowing only Venda and doing all my subjects in Venda, it would not have gotten me anywhere.”
Source:eNCA