In an emotional address, Heathfield High School principal bids farewell to learners and staff. Neumann served as principal since 2018. Picture: Supplied
I sometimes wonder what makes education departments around the world intransigent in their decisions. What should be a simple decision becomes a long, drawn-out battle.
My experience in education in SA is that our energies are used to fight battles which should not have arisen in the first place if the department had acted logically in consultation with the forces it opposes.
The one issue is the sacking of principal Wesley Neumann this year, who quite rightly, with the Heathfield High Community, recommended to parents to keep their children at home in June 2020 when the rate of infection of Covid-19 was quite high.
President Cyril Ramaphosa closed schools in July 2020, supporting schools that believed that students were in danger of succumbing to the virus.
How did the WCED react to Heathfield High? They came on to the school with all their might, charging the principal, Mr Neumann, with a host of charges of disobeying the WCED’s instruction that students return to school. The WCED used almost R1million to haul Mr Neumann to a disciplinary hearing.
The hearing was the longest in the history of SA education since 1994, lasting a year and a half. The WCED eventually found him guilty and offered him a demotion to another school as a head of department.
He refused, and in May this year, they dismissed Mr Neumann.
The WCED disrupted a school that was producing good results and offering extra-mural activities to students after school. Not many schools of the poor offer good academic teaching and extra-mural activities to their students due to lack of funds and a host of other reasons.
The school community has not accepted the decision of the WCED, and after it was announced that Mr Neumann was dismissed, the students refused to attend classes for two weeks in May 2022 because they wanted him back at school.
Mr Neumann urged the students to return to school so that they could continue with their education. The students returned to school and completed the second term, also writing the June examinations under very difficult conditions.
Mr Neumann has taken the matter to the independent ELRC (Education Labour Relations Council). The hearing is set for July 28.
Teachers have on numerous occasions appealed to the WCED to be more understanding of the plight of teachers and the difficult conditions under which they work.
The teaching community, the parents and students in SA must support Mr Neumann in his bid to be reinstated. He is a man of integrity, and what he and the Heathfield community did was to protect the lives of its children.
Mr Neumann could easily have taken up WCED’s demotion offer. Many teachers would have, but he stood by his principles. All teachers, parents and students should support him. He is an icon to all of us. Imagine if all our teachers opposed injustice in our schools, what independent and critical persons would be sent out into our community and how our education system would thrive.
It is to our society’s credit that it still produces teachers and principals of the calibre of Wesley Neumann.
* Brian Isaacs obtained a BSc (UWC) in 1975, a Secondary Teacher’s Diploma in 1976, BEd (UWC) in 1981, and MEd (UWC) in 1992. He is a former matriculant, teacher and principal at South Peninsula High School.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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