Teacher combing boys hair. The video shows the female teacher yelling out and ordering male pupils to queue as she combs their coiled hair.
Gauteng MEC Panyaza Lesufi has called for the “Education team” to investigate and verify a viral video that showcases a teacher roughly combing the hair of young boys as they enter the school premises.
The video, which has attracted more than 652 000 views on Twitter, shows the female teacher yelling out and ordering male pupils to queue as she combs their coiled hair.
The school has not yet been identified.
Lesufi in response to the video said: “This is completely unacceptable”.
He said: “We’ve many kids absconding from school or committing suicide on small things that happened at school and they become scared to come back to school. It might sound petty but the number of learners taking wrong decisions, it’s massive. As I said I am for discipline, not humiliation.”
Ku rough😂to be a learner pic.twitter.com/18XQXrOfkQ
— Gun City Beats (@thatosethunya1) March 22, 2021
Some disagreed with the MEC, saying the teacher was not in the wrong and that the pupils should look presentable.
However, he said: “Let’s respectfully agree to disagree. Humiliation may lead to learners doing wrong things. I am for discipline but in a proper way.”
The video has divided social media with some agreeing that the teacher’s actions were in line with school policies while others argued that the way children wore their hair had nothing to do with learning; many took the argument further to say that it was discrimination against African coiled hair, which is natural curls.
Radio host Aldrin Sampear tweeted: “Hair is very much political in any setting. Things escalate very quickly. Leave people's hair. If someone else's hair makes YOU feel uncomfortable that's a YOU problem.”
This tweet was retweeted by EFF’s Mbuyiseni Ndlozi.
Kabelo Dick replied to Sampear’s tweet, saying: “In school there are rules and every student must follow those rules, from uniform how u must look to keeping clean neat hair, this has been happening for years, see how Ndlozi looks? Cause his parents knew he must be a neat handsome boy, u guys like to exaggerate things.”