The Education Department is investigating the wife of a school principal for allegedly assaulting a learner.
|||The wife of a school principal is under investigation by the Education Department for allegedly assaulting a pupil.
And the Daily Voice is in possession of a video clip showing the principal’s wife violently manhandling the Grade 10 pupil.
The teacher reportedly had found a cellphone Asiphe Ruxu, 18, was using during detention after school earlier this month.
The footage shows the educator dragging the pupil down a stairwell and pushing her against the wall.
The teenager was left with a swollen and bruised elbow and had trouble moving her arm comfortably.
Spokesman for the Western Cape Education Department Paddy Attwell says: “The department has viewed the clip with concern.
“Our Metro Central Education District is investigating.”
The teenager was in detention when the teacher walked in and saw her with a cellphone.
Asiphe explains she borrowed the phone from her classmate to use the calculator function.
“The teacher didn’t let me explain what I was doing,” she says.
“She came in and dragged me out of the class.
“And she dragged me down the stairs, pushed me against the wall and the dragged me up the stairs again.”
The principal, Junas Julius, denies his wife assaulted the pupil.
Instead he says Mrs Julius is the glue that holds the school together.
“She loves these children and teaches them discipline,” he says.
“She is a great teacher and I’m not saying this because she is my wife, only because she is just the person she is.
“She would never assault a learner, what she was trying to do there is drag the learner who resisted coming into my office.
“I’m sure she didn’t want to cause harm to anyone.”
The principal boasts about how he put Hout Bay High on the map.
“This is a good school and we have never had anything negative coming from this school,” he explains.
“The teacher in question here has given nothing but love for the children.”
Asiphe claims the principal asked her to forgive his wife.
“He summoned me to his office while I was in class,” she says.
“And he kept me there for more than an hour; he asked me if I could forgive his wife for what happened.
“But I couldn’t respond to that and he told me he wanted to see my parents.”
Asiphe’s father Zola Ruxu, 37, didn’t know about the incident until the Daily Voice showed him the clip.
“No child deserves to be handled in that manner,” he says.
“I didn’t even know about the incident.
“My daughter came home and she didn’t speak about it, maybe she was scared.”
The angry father says the teacher’s actions are unlawful.
“If my child misbehaved in class I would have expected the teacher to take her to the principal’s office, call her parents in,” says Zola.
“I think she could have kicked her out of the class and if she refused she could have called in the security guards.
“What I saw in the video is disturbing, what if my child was seriously injured, what would the school say then?
“She didn’t have to fight with my child.”
Pupils at the school describe Mrs Julius as “evil”.
One boy says she even punched him once.
“She is rude, she’s evil, and she doesn’t know how to talk to us,” he says.
“Mrs Julius is just not a good person and I’m not surprised by what she did.
“She chased us away because we were late. We walk to school from Imizamo Yethu and she can’t understand why we are late sometimes.”
*This article was published in the Daily Voice