Publications
Partners
A private school based in Nelspruit, which is notorious for administering corporal punishment – and where a deputy minister’s niece died under mysterious circumstances – is remaining open, thanks to bungling by the provincial education department.
The head of the Mpumalanga education department, Mahlasedi Mhlabane, appears to have violated regulations governing independent schools when she made a decision to shut down Cefups Academy.
Mhlabane deregistered the academy in October last year after Deputy Arts and Culture Minister Rejoice Mabudafhasi’s niece, Paballo Seanne (19), died in July after she was allegedly sjambokked for failing a test.
In response, Cefups Academy president Simon Mkhatshwa lodged an urgent application in the North Gauteng High Court, where he obtained an order setting aside Mhlabane’s decision to deregister the school.
The court found the department had erred because it had not supplied the school with additional affidavits to support a report compiled by a departmental task team into operations at Cefups.
It also found that the school should have been furnished with the results of the postmortem of the pupil who died before the decision to shut it down was enforced.
According to the court, the head of the provincial education department should have given the school’s management an opportunity to rectify their mistake, as stipulated in the regulations.
In terms of the deregistration notice, Cefups should have closed down at the beginning of this year, but because of Mhlabane’s administrative mishandling of the matter, the school remains open.
Advocate Norman Davis, acting on behalf of the department, advised it against opposing the high court order, which set aside the department’s decision to deregister the academy, saying this would be “wasteful expenditure” because it had little chance of success.
In his legal opinion, Davis advised that although the decision to deregister the school was the correct one, the department had to redo the entire process and follow all correct procedures this time around.
“[Following procedures] would avoid wasteful expenditure in opposing litigation, where there is a risk or reasonable prospect of failure. It would clean the table, as it were, for a new decision to be made,” wrote Davis.
But despite the legal opinion, the department has decided to oppose the order obtained by the school’s management anyway.
Mpumalanga education spokesperson Jasper Zwane said: “The court ruled in favour of the school on their urgent application. The normal/main application is still pending in court and a process is in place to present the case of the department.
“The department is hopeful the court will rule in the best interest of the safety of pupils.”
Mkhatshwa did not respond to questions that were sent to him via SMS.
DA Mpumalanga leader James Masango has called on education MEC Reginah Mhaule to take action against Mhlabane.
“The MEC must not allow poor oversight by her officials to stand in the way of justice,” said Masango.
After Seanne died at the Nelspruit Medi-Clinic, the school denied she was sjambokked and said she drank an antiseptic. But a doctor told City Press the antiseptic the school claimed she drank could not have resulted in death when ingested.
Seanne’s friend alleged that she was sjambokked for two days in a row after not performing well in maths and English tests.
The friend said Seanne was given five lashes because she and some of her classmates had failed to obtain 75% in maths. The friend added that Seanne got 40 more lashes the next day for failing English.
Mpumalanga police spokesperson Brigadier Selvy Mohlala said postmortem results showed that there was antiseptic in her system. However, he could not say if this was what had caused her death.
“All the samples [of her organs] that were examined had Savlon [antiseptic] in them, but we don’t know whether this caused the death. The docket is with the National Prosecuting Authority and an opinion on what caused the death will be sought,” said Mohlala.
Although many assaults at the R60 000-a-year school were reported over the years, the department could not act because it did not have regulations in place governing independent and private schools until 2013.
In 2013, two boarding masters at Cefpus – Jaconia Nkosi (44) and Henry Mphokane (30) - were sentenced in the Nelspruit magistrate’s court to three years in jail or a fine of R45 000, while another one, Nhlanhla Mazibuko (44), was fined R30 000 for assaulting three teenagers who were supporting their cousin at a beauty pageant held at the school in 2012
