The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) has been instructed to reinstate and compensate a Primrose Park Primary School teacher after she was dismissed in March 2020.
Lee-Ann Snyders was fired after a group of Grade 5 pupils accused her of alleged name-calling and using inappropriate language towards them.
It is alleged that Snyders asked a question to the learners during a history class that related to the private areas of their mothers and whether they had seen it before. She was also accused of name-calling after she had allegedly said that one of the learners had rabies after his eczema flared up.
However, following an appeal last week at the Education Labour Relations Council, evidence indicated that the group allegedly fabricated the allegations against Snyders as they were constantly changing their statements IOL writes. Snyders is now expected to return to the school from June 20 and should receive an amount of R369 716 by no later than the end of June.
Meanwhile, the WCED came up against another struggle as it requires more than R800 million to fill 2 000 teacher posts that have accumulated over the past 10 years.
According to the Education MEC, Debbie Schäfer, the province had to create 4 596 teaching posts to meet the demand of an increasing number of pupils, but only more than half of those posts were filled since 2012, IOL reports.
Since 2020, no new positions have been made available until April as the number of pupils increased. Currently, the Western Cape has 33 865 teachers for nearly 1.1 million pupils.
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