School principal up for assault

2007-10-03 14:09

Walter Ka Nkosi

Nelspruit - The controversial head of a private school in Mpumalanga has appeared briefly in court on charges of beating up a taxi driver.

Simon Mkhatshwa, who has previously been accused of using corporal punishment on both pupils and teachers at the Cefubs Academy outside Nelspruit, was not asked to plead to charges of assault with the intention to cause grievous bodily harm when he appeared in the Nelspruit Magistrate's Court on Tuesday.

The case was postponed to October 25 for further investigation.

He is out on warning.

The alleged incident took place at the school on August 29.

Mkatshwa is accused of whipping a taxi driver with a sjambok after he allegedly failed to ask his permission to fetch girls from their rooms.

The taxi driver was meant to give the girls a lift to their respective homes.

In 2001, over 150 toyi-toying pupils marched on Mpumalanga's legislature complex to protest against the use of sjamboks and corporal punishment at the school.

Scores of them bared their buttocks and backs to show welts and raw wounds from beatings.

Corporal punishment is illegal in terms of the South African Schools Act and the provincial education department undertook to investigate the matter.

The department's findings were never released.

Mkhatshwa is no stranger to controversy. He was sentenced to three months jail or a R1 000 fine in 1999 after being convicted for publicly sjambokking the academy's English teacher Lindie Maphanga.

He also appeared in court in 1997 after allegedly squeezing and twisting a 19-year-old pupil's testicles in front of the school assembly because the youth had been caught sleeping in class.

The assault charges were dismissed when witnesses were too scared to testify against Mkhatshwa.

- African Eye