Sans Souci students protested this week against alleged racism at the school. Photo: Ashraf Hendricks
3 September 2016
The principal of Sans Souci High School, Charmaine Murray, “will not report to the school on Monday”. Instead, the school circuit manager Amanda Engelbrecht “will be at the school to provide support and ensure that there is no victimisation.” This is according to a statement released by MEC for Education Debbie Schafer last night.
This follows days of protests by students at the school, joined by parents, former-students and at least one staff member, in which a number of allegations were made against Murray. The students accused the school of institutional racism including unfair policy on how black girls wear their hair. Yesterday they called for Murray to step down. Thus far Murray has not commented to the media.
Yesterday a delegation of the provincial department went to the school. It was joined in the afternoon by Schafer. After the meeting Schafer wrote:
I am extremely concerned about the shocking allegations that were brought to my attention today. I am equally concerned that they say that they sent a complaint to the Department in 2011 which was ignored.
The learners requested that I meet with them on Monday evening to receive the memorandum of grievances that they were not able to handover today as some learner representatives were absent.
Schafer said she wants to see a new code of conduct adopted by the school governning body by the end of September, following an “inclusive process”.
The minister also said that she was asked by students if they could wear braids in their hair on Monday. The minister responded that so long as “girls look neat there is nothing wrong with braids.”
Schafer also said that she was informed that the group dealing with a new school policy did not include any black African learners despite the majority of learners being black African. “This is just unacceptable,” wrote the minister.
This article was updated after publication with additional content provided by MEC Schafer.