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Equal Education Monitoring 5/31/2018
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NGOs tighten up on sexual harassment policies
May 31, 2018 | Mail & Guardian
By Rumana Akoob
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Limpopo tree school story ‘not true’
May 31, 2018 | The Citizen
By Chisom Jenniffer Okoye
The Limpopo education department says parents put desks under trees for the children, to force the province to build a school that did not need to be built.
Traditional Media Coverage
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NGOs tighten up on sexual harassment policies
May 31, 2018 | Mail & Guardian
By Rumana Akoob
Civil society organisations in South Africa are reviewing their own sexual harassment policies, following the Mail & Guardian’s exposé of the sexual harassment scandal at Equal Education.
A feminist caucus, consisting of womxn across the NGO sector, released a statement declaring their support for everyone who has come forward about their experiences of sexual harassment. They also called for a transparent, survivor-centred approach to the processes dealing with sexual harassment; the issuing of public apologies to women who have left the sector; and the names of those found to be guilty of sexual harassment to be made public.
Both Section27 and Sonke Gender Justice released statements saying they would revise their sexual harassment policies.
“We support all brave women who come forward with their experiences often at personal and emotional costs. The prevalence of sexual harassment in our society, which the recent examples show exists in all sectors, requires us to introspect and work harder,” Section27 said.
Right2Know said in a statement that there was an urgent need to “combat patriarchy across all sectors of our society and especially within activist spaces, including the Right2Know Campaign”. They said they had suspended a member within their organisation after sexual harassment allegations arose.
The Raith Foundation, a donor entity, said they did not consider themselves or any other funder above criticism.
https://mg.co.za/article/2018-05-31-ngos-tighten-up-on-sexual-harassment-policies-1
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Limpopo tree school story ‘not true’
May 31, 2018 | The Citizen
By Chisom Jenniffer Okoye
The Limpopo education department says parents put desks under trees for the children, to force the province to build a school that did not need to be built.
The Limpopo department of education said the “tree school” matter was a direct result of parents trying to put pressure on government to renovate a school that does not meet the national norms and standards.
The department was responding to Section 27 which said yesterday pupils at Makangwane Secondary School in Bochum had been taught under trees since January, despite their cries spanning more than a decade for better infrastructure.
Section 27 said it was approached by the school to represent the school governing body (SGB). Following that, it filed an urgent court application against the department for failure to provide safe and adequate infrastructure for pupils.
It said a part of the corrugated iron roof flew off one of the buildings during break time in January, prompting the governing body to decide that pupils should no longer be taught in the dilapidated structures, but should rather learn under nearby trees.
Provincial department spokesperson Sam Makondo said: “The government was shocked to learn that parents forcefully removed the learners and the school furniture from classrooms and put them under a tree.
“This despite the department’s arrangement with the SGB of a nearby school to accommodate learners temporarily, while the merging process is in process”.
Makondo added that there was no such thing as a “tree school” in Limpopo and that parents carefully planned this incident to force the province to build a school that did not need to be built. He said the merging of small and nonviable schools was lawful in terms of section 12A of the SA Schools Act, and that because Makangwane only had 109 pupils as opposed to the minimum of 200, it could lawfully be merged for educational viability.
Makondo said: “The school does not meet the national norm of at least having 200 learners to exist as a school for quality teaching and learning to take place, in terms of having the right educators who will teach every subject.
“With 109 learners, the school only qualifies for three educators and it will place an enormous burden on our educators, who have to teach subjects they have not specialised in. This is what we think the parents fail to understand and so is Section 27.
“Our efforts to take learners to another facility have been rejected without considering the interest of the learners,” he added.
“We are in the business of education and we shall continue engaging. As a department, we shall continue to apply policies that enhance quality education to our learners. This is our commitment and priority and the sooner parents understand the agenda of the department the better.”
Equal Education, a group that runs norms and standards campaign for decent infrastructure, said: “We believe it is important that the [department of basic education] provide safe and adequate school infrastructure that is conducive to learning.
“It is unacceptable that the DBE has blatantly disregarded the first deadline of the norms and standards [November 29, 2016], and as a result learners continue to be taught in environments which are unsafe and/or not conducive to learning and teaching.”
Section 27 said it would continue helping the school’s SGB.
https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/1941947/limpopo-tree-school-story-not-true/
Traditional Media Coverage
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