The KwaZulu-Natal Education Department investigates racism in classrooms
The KwaZulu-Natal Education Department MEC Kwazi Mshengu has requested a commission of inquiry to look into racism occurring at schools in the province, after the release of a report regarding racism at Grosvenor Girls High School.
Kwazi Mshengu, the KwaZulu-Natal Education MEC, has asked for the creation of a provincial commission of inquiry to investigate into racism in all of the province’s schools.
The KwaZulu-Natal Education Department has published a study on the alleged racism, financial mismanagement, and nepotism at Grosvenor Girls High School.
When the MEC visited the school, parents and students protested against these issues there.
After students accused the school’s principal and some of its teachers of racism, an investigation was launched. A panel of independent experts concluded that racism at the school is structural and systemic, and that white authority dominates every element of it.
The study exposed occasions in which the principal used racial considerations to justify the use of disparaging, dehumanizing, and discriminatory language.
According to the investigations, the principal instructed staff to enroll more white students since “the school belonged to white learners.”
The audit also discovered that R3.4 million in school funds were mismanaged, and some staff members were hired inadvertently.
According to the MEC, any employees who were hired despite not fulfilling the qualifications would have their contracts terminated.
He stated that any cash given to the employees who were hired without fulfilling the minimum qualifications would be the responsibility of the principal and other staff members involved in their appointment.
The principal will also be accused of misbehavior for financial mismanagement, the irregular hiring of staff workers, and racism.
Legal services are to file a complaint against the principal with the Human Rights Commission, as Mshengu has also instructed.
Mshengu stated, “We all have a responsibility to safeguard our learners from any manifestations of racial views and provide them a better opportunity to be a generation that will live in a South Africa that is truly non-racial and unified.”
According to him, the panel of investigation would assist the department in identifying financial hardships and creating norms and standards to stop racial abuse at the province’s schools.
