Lap dance video jolts education officials

THE education ministry is seeking a solution on how to deal with the case of a video showing pupils from a Windhoek school lap dancing in class.

Although the video clip is said to have been shot in 2016 at Dawid Bezuidenhout High School, it sparked widespread interest when it went viral on social media this week.

understands that the pupils in the clip, which shows two girls taking turns to lap-dance on a boy, left the school in 2017.

Headmaster Wilbard Mbeeli yesterday confirmed meeting Khomas education regional director Gerard Vries over the matter.

Mbeeli, however, said he was not at liberty to discuss the matter, but that the ministry would communicate with the media on the issue.

Vries told yesterday that the ministry will next week issue a directive and a detailed process to be implemented in light of such conduct at public schools.

He said schools are equipped with life skills teachers with the knowledge of a curriculum that discusses how schools and pupils should use social media and deal with cyber-bullying.

Vries added that regional school counsellors receive the same training, and there will be an increased emphasis on this.

He said even though school rules state that pupils cannot use cellphones during lessons, it will be essential to incorporate the new directive on teaching and learning on tablets into the rules and impending directive as well.

“The challenge is the availability of cellphones that complicates what teachers can monitor,” he added.

Vries said in ordinary circumstances where the pupils involved are still enrolled at the affected school, parents would have been contacted, and school rules on misconduct would be applied accordingly.

“[But] this is a new dimension that we also need to tackle,” he said, explaining that the directive will focus on highlighting the disciplinary actions that will result from such misbehaviour, as well as strengthening school rules on cyber bullying.

An employee at the school, who spoke on condition of anonymity, yesterday said they only learnt about the video on Tuesday.

She said they have been receiving several phone calls from concerned parents and members of the public after the video went viral.

Erasmus Jason, a Grade 12 pupil at the school at the time of the incident, told The Namibian yesterday that the pupils were fooling around, and that the clip now paints a picture that is more ill-intentioned.

“It’s creating the wrong picture, like this is what’s going on in classes, but it wasn’t like that,” he said, adding that the pupils had no ulterior motives.

Jason added that the school administration did not know about the video at the time as it only circulated among pupils, and thus did not go viral. But with the advent of social media, it would naturally see more shares and spark more outrage.

Jason noted that he knew the pupils involved in the video, and added that they did not want to comment.

Lesley Sanjahi, the secretary for gender and social welfare at the Namibian National Students Organisation, said such issues need to be addressed by involving all stakeholders in the education pyramid – the teachers, pupils and parents.

“There should be an understanding of how it started. Was it a dare? Was it because of peer pressure?” she asked. “We need to talk to parents. Is this something the pupils see at home? What are they viewing at home and at school?”

Sanjahi agreed that such conduct should be met with disciplinary action, but that the measures a school takes to circumvent such incidents from happening again should not affect pupils’ learning, or infringe on their rights.

She, however, questioned whether Namibian schools were at that level of integrative technological use in classes, but that if they are, phones should not be used by pupils or teachers in class.

“Phones should not even be brought to school,” she reasoned.

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