By Goodhope Dlangamandla
30:08:2022

A new report by the non-profit organisation Corruption Watch has lifted the lid on widespread corruption and the practice of sextortion in schools where educators demand sex in exchange for good grades. This is despite numerous policies and legislation intended to provide unimpeded access to a decent education.

In an interview with Radio Islam International, Corruption Watch’s Phemelo Khaas explains that the report titled ‘Sound the Alarm” highlights 3,667 reports of education-related corruption between 2012 and 2021, categorised into three types – Basic Education, Primary and Secondary Education.

Regarding sextortion, she said that these students were unequipped to report these incidents as criminal offences hence why they reported them as sextortion.

“So, we find sextortion in three different categories. Where in high school, primary as well as SETA program. It should be a criminal offence, but young people are not equipped enough to even report these matters. That is why they report them as sextortion, and we know that in primary, it should stand as statutory rape,” she said.

Khaas said that many in these systems are abusing their power by encouraging young people to give them sexual favours to obtain good marks.

She further said that they have not seen any accountability or justice being served for the perpetrators in the sector.

“The government has not published any document that says they have found this amount of irregular behaviour, whether it is extortion, corruption, abuse of power, and this has been done to them. So we are not seeing any accountability for the perpetrator. Some principles have moved because they have been found guilty,” she said.

Meanwhile, the biggest challenge is Quintile 1 and 2, where the School Governing Body is unequipped to run schools and understand procurement processes, making it easy for school principals to take advantage of the system.

She said they have also discovered that in Basic Education, people give jobs to people they know.

“It is found that in Basic Education, it is easy to get employment when you know somebody at a school and in tertiary education, which is the FETs, there is a lot of procurement type of corruption. We know that FETs are in different communities, and those different communities should serve these FETs in terms of gardening, catering, maintenance, and those type of things. But tenders only go to people who know people that are inside,” said Khaas.

She added that community members end up not getting the same opportunities that are due to them. Even the stipends offered by government and SETA institutions to young people to grow their businesses end up in the hands of the wrong crowd.

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