Azra Hoosen | ah@radioislam.co.za
11 November 2024 | 16:00 CAT
2 min read

The Gauteng MEC recently unveiled a report on racism allegations at Pretoria High School for Girls, revealing discrimination faced by both students and black educators. The school has long been under scrutiny, facing numerous allegations of racism and misconduct.

The probe was launched in July after 12 pupils were accused of sharing racist micro-aggressions in a whites-only WhatsApp group. In August, the school cleared the girls of any wrongdoing following an independent disciplinary hearing, but the department’s investigation continued.

The Chairperson of the Select Committee on Education, Mr Makhi Feni, has recently welcomed the findings of the Gauteng Department of Education’s probe into racism at Pretoria High School for Girls, highlighting that the report exposed ongoing racism in white schools, where efforts to block integration persist. He urged schools to reflect on how they integrate black learners and acknowledged that denying racism only alienates victims.

Clinical psychologist Dr Keitumetse Mashego unpacked the origins of these issues and their effects on those impacted in an interview with Radio Islam. Unfortunately, what we are witnessing at this school and other places, not just within the educational setting, is the lingering impact of unresolved pre-1994, pre-democracy attitudes.

“People had internalised the view that they were superior based on the system created in apartheid,” she said. However, when everything changed in 1994, these attitudes were not uprooted. Many still internalised feelings of superiority, while others continued to feel inferior. “Now people are raising children to believe these same views. It will perpetuate and carry on until people start doing the work internally within, which has not been done before,” she added.

She believes that if people, especially parents and sometimes teachers, do not see anything wrong with their actions, there will be no change in behaviour. “The prognosis is sadly poor for people who do not realise they have a problem,” she said.

Dr Mashego stated that people need to realise that seeing themselves as superior and others as inferior is a problem. There needs to be awareness that this perspective is wrong, but that has not been addressed. She emphasised that the root cause has not been uprooted, which is why we continue to see such instances.

In her view, this happens in many schools across South Africa. “So, we need to start educating people how powerful the mind is, and whatever we are not processing we are going to project and teach to generations to come,” she said.

Dr Mashego advised that children need to start questioning their behaviour and not blindly follow what their parents teach, without considering whether it is factually true.

Chairperson of the Select Committee on Education, Mr. Makhi Feni emphasised the need for schools to embrace diversity and integrate black students without discrimination. He also criticised a previous report commissioned by the school as a “whitewashing” attempt and called for the implementation of anti-racism programs.

LISTEN to the full interview with Ml Habib Bobat and Dr Keitumetse Mashego, Clinical psychologist, here.