“Firing principal and suspending learners won’t solve problem,” says teachers’ union

The Executive Director of the Teachers Union, Naptosa, has criticised the Gauteng Education Department’s handling of escalating racial tensions at Pretoria Girls High School, saying that suspending learners and teachers won’t solve the problem.

Basil Manuel was responding to the suspension of yet another learner today after a video with suspected racial undertones surfaced.

In the clip, a black matric pupil threatens to make fellow white pupils bow down.

The Gauteng Education Department has initiated a disciplinary hearing against the learner, citing serious concerns over the video.

The incident follows disciplinary hearings for 12 white pupils implicated in a racist WhatsApp group, where they allegedly made discriminatory remarks against black peers.

The school’s head girl and prefects are among those implicated and have since been demoted.

The principal has also been suspended for allegedly ignoring offended black learners’ concerns.

However, Manuel argues that suspensions won’t improve the situation or correct student behaviour.

Instead, he’s urged the department to support the School Governing Body (SGB) in promoting greater tolerance.

“What we don’t want to see is white flight, where public education becomes only black education. Public education must be for everybody,” he told YNews.

Attorney and author, Richard Wilkinson, meanwhile claims that some white parents are already withdrawing their daughters due to the “hostile” environment at the school.

Wilkinson alleges that some learners may be intentionally trying to implicate white peers in a racial controversy.

“It’s clear evidence of girls trying to entrap their white schoolmates in some kind of race scandal,” he added.

He criticised the provincial education department, accusing it of inflaming the situation instead of improving it.

“They (12 white learners) received suspension letters over a week ago without knowing what they did wrong. None of the girls knew what they said in the WhatsApp group until the disciplinary hearing,” he told YNews.

According to Wilkinson, the WhatsApp conversation was not offensive.

He says it was rather girls complaining about racial targeting and provocation.

He believes white parents and students feel unfairly demonised by some ANC and EFF-backed groups at the school.

However, this is not the first time black learners complain about alleged racism at the school.

A notable incident was in 2016 when protests over the institution’s hair policy, which banned afros, made headlines.

Young people are now calling for honest, open, and uncomfortable conversations about race to tackle racism.

They emphasised that addressing racism must start at home, where it often originates. Written by Naomi Kobbie