By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Gauteng Education Department (GDE) is set to move learners from Crowthorne Christian Academy after a staff member manhandled a learner because she had dreadlocks.
MEC Matome Chiloane’s spokesperson Xolani Mkhwemnte says the department will look to place pupils at alternative schools.
“We are prepared to place all affected learners of the school in alternative schools, as we believe that Crowthorne Christian Academy is not an institution that can effectively educate children. We urge all parents who have children in this school to contact the department for assistance.”
The school hit the headlines after a video emerged on Monday showing a 13-year-old pupil and her mother being pushed by the school’s officials during a confrontation about the child’s dreadlocks.
The school deemed the hair to be in violation of its “no extensions” policy.
On Thursday, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) confirmed a 51-year-old man, who was arrested for pulling the hair of the grade 8 pupil at Crowthorne Christian Academy, was released on R2 000 bail.
Andries Hendrik Booysen appeared in the Midrand Magistrate’s Court facing two counts of assault.
In the meantime, the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) called on the Department of Basic Education to rein in private schools that were being run as “spaza shops”.
Sadtu said it condemned the assault and ejection of the 13-year-old learner from her class for refusing to cut her dreadlocks.
“Such an act was a gross violation of the learner’s rights. Children have a right to be free from all forms of violence, to enjoy their education and not to be treated in a degrading manner,” Sadtu’s statement read.
Sadtu said it was “alarming” that some schools were still using hair policies to discriminate against African learners nearly 30 years into the new democracy.
The EFF in Gauteng also condemned the school and its policy which effectively institutionalises racism by raising white people’s genotypical and phenotypical characteristics as the standard for what is natural and those of African people as unnatural.
The EFF stated it deplored such a policy because it suggested there was something abnormal and problematic about African people.