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The school governing body (SGB) of Parktown Boys’ High School has pleaded with the Gauteng department of education to ensure that the school’s image is not tarnished following the release of the forensic report into Enock Mpianzi’s death.
This was according to department MEC Panyaza Lesufi who on Wednesday night released the findings of the report to the media and parents at the school.
“Whoever is mentioned in this report, whoever is a stakeholder in this school were all consulted and on the basis of those consultations, they have given us the go ahead to release this report,” Lesufi said.
These stakeholders, according to Lesufi, included the Mpianzi family, the school’s management, the SGB parents of pupils at the school and labour unions.
“The SGB sharply raised various issues including pleading with us that because of the high number of teachers who are implicated, we must handle this matter with care,” Lesufi said.
“They also requested that the image or the brand of the school should be protected, and I cautiously indicated to them that when somebody has died, we can’t choose a brand over the loss of life, but nevertheless we note their concern.”
Lesufi went on to reveal that five teachers at the school had been implicated in the report.
“There are teachers who are implicated in the report. These are teachers who are executing day-to-day responsibilities at the school,” Lesufi said.
Read: School and campsite to blame for Enock Mpianzi’s death – forensic report
The school has faced scrutiny in recent years.
In 2018, abuse at the school came to light after a former assistant water polo coach Collan Rex was caught on a surveillance camera fondling a 15-year-old pupil’s genitals in the common room of the hostel in November 2016.
Rex was later found guilty of 144 counts of sexual assault and 12 counts of common assault in September that year.
Reading the report, Peter Harris of Harris Nupen Molebatsi Attorneys – the law firm which compiled the report – said although they “had not received the post-mortem report all indications pointed to drowning”.
Harris emphasised that the school, the SGB, camp management and educators had to be held liable for negligence and recklessness which played a role in Mpianzi’s death.
“There was a breach of the school’s duty of care because educators were not present at all activities as they should have been,” he said.
RT @PalesaDlamini_0: Harris say learners were without life jackets and that educators did not carry out their duties by making sure they were present during all camp activities. #EnockMpianzi pic.twitter.com/p2GFgcpTod
— City Press (@City_Press) March 4, 2020
Harris added that the issue of life jackets also needed to be addressed.
“Our finding is that it’s quite clear that pupils should have been issued life jackets,” he said.
“When we put that to Mr Knoetze [camp owner Anton Knoetze] he said that life jackets are only issued to people who go down the river and ‘because this took place in shallow water, we did not think that they should have life jackets’”.
However, Harris emphasised that this activity did not take place “in shallow water, this took place in the river and they [the learners] were not issued with life jackets”.
Harris added: “When we asked how many life jackets the camp had, he said 12. But there were 204 learners. We find that the camp was reckless to the extreme in allowing boys to go into a river in those conditions without life jackets.”
Mpianzi went missing on January 15 during a water activity while at a school orientation camp at the Nyati Bush River Break near Brits in the North West, after a makeshift raft he and other boys were on overturned.
His body was subsequently recovered from the Crocodile River almost two days later.
Lesufi added that the department had “issued a communique to all our schools not to use Nyati Bush and that any water activities should meet seven criteria”, including making sure that there are lifesavers on site.
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