Pretoria - As part of its investigation into alleged incidents of racism and delayed transformation at Cornwall Hill College, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has called for oral submissions to be made by interested parties.
The SAHRC announced that following complaints of racism raised during the peaceful protests involving parents and learners at the school on May 31 2021, it would now, as part of the investigation launched last year June, be admitting oral submissions.
The SAHRC initiated the investigation into the environment and pupils’ experiences at Cornwall Hill College on June 3 following a meeting with representatives from the SAHRC and the college’s leadership.
After the meeting, the SAHRC said both parties had in principle agreed that the SAHRC would conduct further investigations into the school’s environment and culture.
Furthermore that the SAHRC would as part of the investigation interview pupils, staff, management, the Board of Directors, and a sample of parents in order to gain further insights into the root causes of parents’ and pupils’ concerns.
It said once it had gained further qualitative data, it would then make recommendations for any necessary adjustments at the school to resolve any lingering issues or grievances.
The college was also offered assistance in reviewing its policies, code of conduct for learners, and procedures, as well as being given access to the SAHRC’s teaching tool kits for use within the school’s diversity programme, which it reported would be rolled out to students over the course of the next few months.
The SAHRC said once all aspects of the investigation were concluded it would make findings, report on, and make recommendations concerning allegations of racism, lack of diversity, and transformation at the college, taking into consideration the Constitution and other relevant legislation, policies, and guidelines.
"As part of our investigation herein, the SAHRC will hear oral submissions from interested parties on March 22 and 23. Members of the school management, Board of Directors, pupils (both former and current), parents, staff, and interested parties are invited to make oral submissions to the SAHRC to fully address the issues for investigation."
The SAHRC said requests to make oral submissions should reach the organisation by no later than March 18.
The latter comes as a brief respite for parents who in February this year accused the leadership of the college of dragging its feet in achieving transformation at the school despite giving assurances to parents, learners, and Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi that there was no need to bring in the department's legislative arm into the matter.
The parents reported that the incidents of racism were still taking place at the college unabated.
They alleged even though there had already been two racist fuelled incidents this year, the school was continuing to push back the transformation agenda.
The parents said there had been a fight between black and white learners at a school function and another in which a grade 8 learner was recorded calling another learner with the k-word.
"Since May every time we tried to discuss the matter with them at meetings, they ran away from it. Meetings from June, July, August, and November were all cancelled by the school up until they decided unilaterally that the issue would no longer be discussed in the parent meetings."
In a letter sent to parents in February, the college indicated that the upcoming Parents Association Meeting would not provide for discussion on diversity and transformation as the college already had the Diversity and Transformation Committee, the board, the concerned parents, and executive management attending to that.
It further indicated that the board, committee, and executive would set up a forum where all parents could continue dialogue on diversity and transformation, in the same way, which had happened in the PA meetings over the past two years.
Parents said they were upset that the school's executive had decided to go back to a system that had not been working and made the decision unilaterally without even consulting them.
Pretoria News