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enca.com (eNews Channel Africa), Johannesburg, 8 September 2015
South Africa
Bloem school investigated for corporal punishment
BLOEMFONTEIN - A Bloemfontein private school may face criminal charges and civil suits, following claims of corporal punishment on the premises.
Learners at Headstart High School claim caning is not unusual there and they have filmed a number of incidents to support these allegations.
The South African Human Rights Commission is investigating the matter.
Headstart High is a privately owned school in Bloemfontein's Hamilton industrial area. One of the complainants accuses one of the teachers here of living by the motto: "At Headstart High, we beat."
In cell phone footage allegedly filmed between July and August 2015, a teacher can be seen laying into pupils with a cane, on several occasions. The footage seemed to shock the school principal.
Principal Tumisang Maliehe says, "I cannot imagine a child going through that pain. It's very bad. It comes as a shock, but as a school, we need to follow right procedures to put the teacher into disciplinary processes and find a way forward so our learners do not keep experiencing this kind of bad treatment from the teachers."
But, the headmaster's innocence has also been questioned.
Nevertheless, the HRC has confirmed it will be investigating the complaints and interviewing learners from the school.
© 2015 eNews Channel Africa. All rights reserved
RELATED VIDEO CLIP
Two-minute report from Johannesburg-based TV news channel eNCA (8 Sep 2015) of which the above text is an abbreviated version. Students (called "learners" in South Africa) are glimpsed in the distance being caned in the classroom. The school principal is interviewed, as also a human-rights activist.
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