NYAKALLO TEFU|

The University of Cape Town (UCT) has cancelled classes and tests on Monday and Tuesday following a fire that left students traumatised. 

A fire broke out on Sunday morning where the historic Mostert’s Mill in Mowbray was destroyed and also spread to the University of Cape Town’s upper and middle campus.

The fire spread rapidly from Rhodes Memorial and gutted historical UCT buildings including Fuller House student residence and the Jagger Library

Over 100 firefighters and emergency personnel were deployed to campus and to Table Mountain National Park. 

UCT vice chancellor Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng said: “In light of the fire affecting the Rondebosch campus of the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the impact this is having on the university’s buildings as well as the evacuation of residences, all academic activities will be suspended tomorrow and on Tuesday.”

The fire prompted students to be evacuated from the University on Sunday morning with fears of their safety being compromised.

“For safety reasons, campus will be locked down and no one, other than emergency services, will be allowed access,” said Phakeng. 

Food and emergency accommodation has been arranged for the students.

UCT student representative council president Decian Dyer said students have been placed into nine hotels around the city.

In a statement released by the department of higher education, science and innovation, Minister Blade Nzimande said he was saddened that the fire destroyed the iconic African Studies Library houses and the ANC archives and records of underground publications.

Executive director of the UCT libraries Ujala Satgoor said an unexpected natural disaster struck at the heart of UCT Libraries today and I write this message with a deep sense of sorrow and loss at the havoc and devastation.

“Some of our valuable collections have been lost, however a full assessment can only be done once the building has been declared safe and we can enter the building. An official statement is forthcoming and until such time, I request that individuals refrain from speculation and conjecture,” said Satgoor.

Gift of the Givers said it will also assist by providing meals and the 4000 UCT students who have been left stranded.

The organisation’s founding director, Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, said his organisation will be providing the stranded students with three meals a day.

Adding that Vodacom has given students free airtime and data so that they can contact their families.

Sooliman said the situation at UCT is so dire that some students have been left with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Phakeng said they are all anxious about the extent of the damage to the Rondebosch campus and will provide updates as soon as they are able to do so. 

Students who were evacuated have been provided with food and accommodation.

“The necessary arrangements have also been made to accommodate our Muslim students. Food will be prepared at Old Mutual’s offices in Pinelands, Cape Town and from there it will be distributed to the locations where we are accommodating our students,” said Phakeng. 

The University also called on the greater community to assist with any donations to assist students and the school. 

“The public have been asked to donate any essential items and food which they may wish to contribute,” said Phakeng. 

Phakeng said officials must still assess the extend of the damage and the risks of smoke inhalation before allowing students to return to the university’s residences.

NDIVHUWO MUSETHA|

Grief stricken brother says they are not satisfied with how teachers and principal handled bullying incident.

Every afternoon when Lufuno Mavhunga returned from school she would lock herself in her room to study.

She would wake up every morning and catch the 6:00 am bus to school. The bus would drive 35km from her home village to Mbilwi Secondary School in Sibasa, Limpopo. This been her life since 2019.

Lufuno did this because she wanted to become a medical doctor once she completed her schooling.

According to Lufuno’s family, the 15-year old would repeat this ritual, come back home and lock herself into her room. Her family would not suspect anything sinister. She would kill herself.

Lufuno passed away on Monday evening after she allegedly consumed a dosage of mixed pills. This happened a few hours after she was recorded being assaulted by other learners in a video that went viral on social media.

The assault – which happened in full view of other learners – has now raised questions about whether teachers and school management could have acted differently after learning of the incident.

Lufuno’s older brother Kenneth Mavhunga charged said the bullying continued “right in front of the educators who were trying to handle the matter after the two learners were taken to the principal’s offices immediately after the incident.”

He added: “Although we cannot blame anyone about the death of our younger sister Lufuno, who was also a last born in the family of 10 children, we still believe that the school management should have handled this matter differently.”

“If they handled this matter differently, we believe that maybe Lufuno would still be alive today. Our concern is that the management allowed the bullying to continue against Lufuno right in front of them,” said Mavhunga.

Limpopo education department spokesperson Tidimalo Chuene said in response to the comments by Mavhunga: “We have noted the concerns and they cannot be ignored.”

Chuene said action will be taken once the head of department receives a report from the district director into the bullying incident. She said the process which started last week has been delayed by the deaths in a road accident of six learners from the Jim Chavani Secondary school, Shikundu village in the Collins Chabane local municipality on Friday.

Provincial education officials visited the school and families of the deceased learners on Monday.

Lufuno’s parents said they have reported the bullying incident to the school a number of times.

In the video that went viral last Monday, Lufuno was seen standing against the wall, trying to protect her face from the bully girl, also 15. The girl repeatedly slapped her across the face while fellow learners cheered on.

The incident has raised calls for the authorities to take action against bullying in schools.

Last week, minister of basic education Angie Motshekga visited the school. Motshega said teachers would be taken through a disciplinary process but added that such action would be guided by the contents of the report into the incident.

Meanwhile, the family continues to deal with the grief.

“As a last-born, we all put our hope on Lufuno to see her achieving great things in life, especially educationally.  She always promised everyone on the family that she was going to carry the flag of the family very high and we believed her,” said Mavhunga.

He painted a picture of Lufuno as a dedicated learner who loved her books.

“Every day she comes back from school, she would get her meal and lock herself in the room and study. Even the day of the fateful incident, she came back and explained what happened to her parents.  They tried to speak to her and she went to her room as normal.  As elders, they did not see any bad sign until when they checked her later in the room where they found that she consumed a lot of pills,” said Mavhunga.

The Limpopo department of education said the untimely tragic death of Lufuno should send a strong message to all bullies and discourage them to stop their inhumane behavior.

In responde, Mavhunga said, “I hope that my younger sister’s death will serve as a wake-up call.  Although we never expected Lufuno to leave us so early, we believe that with time we will be able to heal. However, we hope that Lufuno’s death will serve as a lesson to us all, especially parents, that we must start to look into what our children our doing behind our back.”

“As a family, the school management did not call us to inform us about the incident.  We just suspect that if they warned us before she comes home, we have been better prepared by the time she arrived home,” he said.

Lufuno was born in February 2005. She attended a local crèche before she started her primary education at Tshikombani Primary. 

After passing grade five, she asked her parents, Joseph and Fulufhelo, to be transferred to Tshirenzheni Primary, “because she felt that the standard at her former school was too low for her ambitions of becoming a medical doctor when she grow up.”

It was also because of her aspirations and dreams that prompted her parents to seek her admission at Mbilwi, because of its good record of producing good matric results, including Maths and Science, which put them in the Club of 100 every year.

Mavhunga confirmed that the school informed them about the case they opened against the bully learner who appeared before the Thohoyandou Magistrate’s court on Friday.

The learner cannot be named as she is a minor. Limpopo police spokesperson, Brigadier Motlafela Mojapelo said Lufuno was found lying unconscious in her room by her mother, Fulufhelo.

She was taken to Siloam Hospital by an ambulance where she was later certified dead. Mojapelo confirmed that an inquest docket was opened following Lufuno’s death.

Limpopo regional spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority advocate Mashudu Malabi Dzhangi said the arrested learner will be dealt with according to the Child Justice Act prescripts. The matter was remanded to 20 April 2021 for a formal bail application in the Thohoyandou Magistrate Children’s Court. The case will be heard in camera.

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) said its investigations so far indicate that the principal of the school, Nyambeni Lidzhade, “failed to take appropriate action when the Mavhunga family informed him about the incident.”

The commission said they conducted a fact-finding visit to the school on Wednesday.

Chuene said Lidzhade planned to make a follow-up on the matter the following day, the Tuesday after the incident. The chairperson of the School Governing Body, FR Netshitavhe, says they are fully behind the school management and the way they handled the matter so far. – Mukurukuru Media

The Presidency has issued a statement denying allegations of corruption made against President Cyril Ramaphosa ’s involvement in a “dubious tender”.

Reports state that a school construction tender was awarded to Ramaphosa’s Shanduka Foundation by Free State ‘s department of education without following proper protocols.

According to The Star newspaper, the tender was never advertised and there were some discrepancies in the awarding of the tender.

“The Star has seen an affidavit from an official of the Free State Department of Education which says that there may have been discrepancies in the awarding of the tender,” said the newspaper.

Adding that the department of public works has confirmed to the newspaper that some important documents relating to the schools construction are missing and that Reserve Bank shareholder, Fanie Fondse, has laid criminal charges against Ramaphosa at the Sandton Police Station for corruption related to Shanduka’s tender bid to build schools in the Free State.

In response the president’s media team said the newspaper reports were not clear on the details of the complaint and that the original article contained glaring inaccuracies and a misrepresenting of facts.

“Shanduka Group never received a tender for the construction of any schools in the Free State,” said Ramaphosa ‘s media team in response.

“Neither President Ramaphosa nor any companies in which he held interests has ever received any benefit from school construction in the Free State or anywhere else in the country.

“On the contrary, both President Ramaphosa and Shanduka have made substantial financial contributions towards the construction and development of schools,” said Ramaphosa ‘s spokesperson Tyrone Seale in a statement.

The Star also reported that the Free State MEC for education, Tate Makgoe, was also a member of the Shanduka Trust board at the time, while Ramaphosa served as the chairperson.

To this, Seale responded that Ramaphosa was neither a director nor a shareholder in Shanduka Group in 2015, “at the time he was alleged to have ‘persuaded’ the provincial department to award the non-existent contract,” he said.

“He exited the business in November 2014,” added Seale.

Adding that neither President Ramaphosa, nor any companies in which he held interests, has ever received any benefit from school construction in the Free State or anywhere else in the country.

“On the contrary, both President Ramaphosa and Shanduka have made substantial financial contributions towards the construction and development of schools,” said Seale.

NYAKALLO TEFU|

A Grade 11 boy from Anchor Comprehensive High School allegedly stabbed a Grade 12 boy learner from Emadwaleni Secondary School in Orlando West on Thursday.

This comes just a few days after a Limpopo teenager committed suicide after an alleged bully was recorded assaulting her.

“Reasons for the violent act are still unknown and a case has been opened with the South African Police Service [SAPS],” said Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi.

Lesufi said his department will deal accordingly with bullies at schools. 

“The Gauteng education department will also send psycho-social support to the school to assist all those affected by the stabbing incident.

“The Grade 11 learner has been suspended with immediate effect, pending a disciplinary process in due course,” said Lesufi. 

Media reports and social media recordings have shown an increasing number of bullying incidents in schools across the country’s provinces.

“Our schools should be the centres of excellence, not sites of violence and other anti-social behavior.

“We call on parents to play their role and talk to their children about ill-discipline and violence as this is a societal challenge,” said Lesufi.

According to a study by Stellenbosch University researcher in the department of economics Linda Zuze, the occurrence bullying has become increasingly evident in South African schools. 

“This phenomenon has become visible through mainstream media reports and viral social media video clips, resulting in public concern about the lack of safety in South African schools,” said Zuze.

Another incident of bullying took place in school toilets at Dinwiddie High School in Germiston this week. Social media recordings show one pupil choking the other while she lies on the ground. The pupil continues to pull the other pupil’s hair as she tries to hit back.

Lesufi said: “Information at our disposal indicates that this incident took place on Monday 12 April 2021 and the school intervened immediately.”

He said following preliminary investigations on 14 April 2021, one learner was placed on precautionary suspension as per the school’s Code of Conduct and the parents of both learners were duly appraised.

According to Zuze, there are multiple factors that can contribute to bullying behaviour in teenagers, these include:

·     Feeling insecure. 

·     Picking on someone who seems emotionally or physically weaker can provide a feeling of importance, popularity, or control.

·     Lack of awareness. Some teenagers don’t know or realise that it’s unacceptable to pick on others who are different because of size, looks, race, or religion, particularly those that frequently see this behaviour from other people in their lives. 

The Gauteng Education Department says the learner at Dinwiddie High school will face a disciplinary hearing by the School Governing Body on 20 April 2021. 

Learners at the school will also receive psycho-social support.

NYAKALLO TEFU|

A 15-year-old girl from Mbilwi Secondary School in Thohoyandou has been arrested after for allegedly assaulting another learner who later died in an apparent suicide.

The apparent suicide allegedly happened after a video went viral on social media, where two students can be seen in an altercation and the one slapping another fellow learner across the face several times. 

The incident has caused a stir on social media, as many call for #JusticeForLufuno. 

“The victim reportedly went home in the afternoon and on arrival, she allegedly locked herself in the room and consumed an overdose of tablets,” said Brigadier Motlafela Mojapelo.

Inside Education reported yesterday that the Limpopo Department of Education is investigating the death of a grade 10 learner at Mbilwi Secondary School, in the Vhembe East education district, after a video of her being assaulted went viral.

According to Mojapelo the learner was found by her mother lying unconscious and was taken to Siloam hospital where she was certified dead on arrival.

The police said a case was opened on Wednesday morning after the incident took place on Tuesday. 

“An inquest docket has been opened and police investigations are continuing,” added Mojapelo. 

Mojapelo said the arrested child will be dealt with in accordance with the Child Justice Act.

Meanwhile, Limpopo Education MEC, Polly Boshielo together with Health MEC, Dr. Phophi Ramathuba will on Thursday 15 April 2021, visit Mbilwi Secondary School and the family of the deceased. 

More details to follow after the meeting takes place.