{"id":10652,"date":"2013-09-26T13:30:58","date_gmt":"2013-09-26T13:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=10652"},"modified":"2013-09-26T13:30:58","modified_gmt":"2013-09-26T13:30:58","slug":"more-than-100-sex-complaints-against-s-african-teachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=10652","title":{"rendered":"More than 100 sex complaints against S. African teachers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cartoon<\/a>
Cartoon from the Sowetan, a black South African newspaper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More than 100 complaints of sexual misconduct were laid against teachers last year, according to the SA Council for Educators (SACE).<\/p>\n

In its 2012\/13 annual report, tabled at Parliament on Thursday, the council said it received a total of 556 complaints for various “alleged offences or breaches” between April 1 last year and March 30 this year.<\/p>\n

Of these, 104 were for “sexual misconduct, including rape”.<\/p>\n

The council was established in terms of the SACE Act. According to this legislation, no person is allowed to practise as a teacher in South Africa unless he or she is registered with the council.<\/p>\n

Other categories of offences listed in the annual report, including the number of such complaints laid against teachers, are:<\/p>\n

— Verbal abuse, victimisation, harassment and defamation: 83;<\/p>\n

— Fraud, theft and financial mismanagement: 65;<\/p>\n

— Racism: two;<\/p>\n

— Corporal punishment and assault: 182;<\/p>\n

— Unprofessional conduct, alcohol abuse, absenteeism and insubordination: 115;<\/p>\n

— Negligence: nil; and,<\/p>\n

— Murder: two.<\/p>\n

The council said 319 of the total 556 cases were “finalised in forms other than disciplinary hearings”.<\/p>\n

A total of 57 disciplinary cases were finalised over the 12-month period.<\/p>\n

According to the report, 27 teachers were struck off the council’s roll of educators indefinitely.<\/p>\n

Yet another was struck off, but may re-apply after a certain period, and a further 28 were struck off, but the striking off was suspended for a certain period.<\/p>\n

On the number of appeals received from those struck off, eight were from those struck off the roll indefinitely for sexual offences.<\/p>\n

Of the eight, five were finalised and the appeals dismissed. The other three appeals had been postponed.<\/p>\n

On dealing with abuse of pupils by teachers, the council said one of the biggest problems was the general lack of co-operation by the parents of the abused children.<\/p>\n

Parents had refused council officials access to the abused children.<\/p>\n

“In some case, the abusers would end up being referred to ‘as sons-in-law’,” the report states.<\/p>\n

This practice had negatively affected the council’s operations.<\/p>\n

“[E]ach year we have a lot of sexual abuse cases that are being carried over into the next financial year because they could not be closed.”<\/p>\n

It said the battle against the abuse of pupils would not be won “until such time that parents take the responsibility to protect their children and to support the SACE cause.” – Sapa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than 100 complaints of sexual misconduct were laid against teachers last year, according to the SA Council for Educators (SACE). In its 2012\/13 annual report, tabled at Parliament on Thursday, the council said it received a total of 556 complaints for various “alleged offences or breaches” between April 1 last year and March 30 … Continue reading “More than 100 sex complaints against S. African teachers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[36,1420,6495,6496],"class_list":["post-10652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-rape","tag-sex","tag-sexual-misconduct","tag-teachers"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/yalo-sexteach.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10654,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10652\/revisions\/10654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}