In the first of two videos, a man presumed to be a teacher smacks one of the pupils. In the second video, the same man throws over a desk before pushing another pupil. The dates on the videos indicate that the incidents happened in October and November of last year.
Olympia Park School is an LSEM school, a Lutheran Special Education Ministries school, for Christian communities.
News24 has been trying since Monday to get comment from the school, who repeatedly referred the matter to the education department.
Gauteng education department acting spokesperson Oupa Bodibe said on Tuesday that the department was “extremely disappointed by alleged conduct of the educator”.
He said the department had not been aware of the video or the incident and only learned about what had happened when it approached the principal.
“Corporal punishment no longer has space in schools and any educator found to have administered corporal punishment will face charges of assault which could lead to the educator being dismissed,” Bodibe said. “We have instructed the principal to provide us with a written response providing reasons why this matter was never reported to the department.”
He said they had referred the matter to its Labour Relations Unit for appropriate disciplinary action and would provide counselling for the learner.
“The department would like to remind educators that Section 10 of the South African Schools Act 84 of 1996 prohibits any educator from administering corporal punishment in our schools,” he said.
