Principal admits past beatings at school

PAST claims that children at one of the biggest schools in Namibia had been beaten by teachers have on some occasions been found to be true, the school’s principal has told the High Court.

This emerged during the hearing of a case in which the Minister of Education and a teacher are being sued by a child who alleges to have received corporal punishment at the school. The headmistress of Olof Palme Primary School in Windhoek, Julia Hangula, acknowledged past incidents of beatings by teachers at her school while testifying before Acting Judge Raymond Heathcote in the High Court last week.Hangula was the first witness to testify on behalf of the Education Minister in a case in which a former pupil, Kapurunje Uirab, is suing the Minister and a teacher, Aaron Tjatindi, for N$50 000.Uirab claims that Tjatindi gave him a series of beatings at the school on October 23 and 24 2003.Tjatindi and the Minister are denying it.If such beatings took place, it would have been against the law.Namibia’s Supreme Court declared corporal punishment in schools unconstitutional in early 1991.With a school of about 1 600 students – one of the biggest in Namibia – to run, it can be accepted that Hangula has a challenging task on her hands.Her strategy is to run the institution on Biblical terms, by encouraging people to apologise and forgive each other on occasions where someone has wronged another person, she explained to the court in her testimony last week.”I’m just trying to create peace and to run an institution in a peaceful atmosphere,” she stated.Part of her approach to running the school has been to teach the children, who are sometimes prone to fighting, that just like teachers are not allowed to beat children, they should also not fight each other, she told the Acting Judge.Repeatedly during her evidence, Hangula stated and restated that she was opposed to corporal punishment in her school, and had been since she joined the school in 1999.However, “some few cases” had come to light when parents approached the school to complain that their child had been beaten by a teacher, she added under cross-examination from Susan Vivier, the counsel representing Uirab.Some of the complaints were found to be true, she said.While she had heard complaints of beatings, she did not ask about the actual nature of the beatings, Hangula testified.She then volunteered: “Sometimes one cannot remember what was used; was it a slap, was it a pipe, was it a what?” Until that stage, the manner in which Uirab claims to have been beaten by Tjatindi – he alleges he was slapped through the face and then given a hiding with a piece of plastic pipe that had a wire inside – had not yet been put to Hangula.The principal also told the court that she could remember “two cases, or three” of complaints of children having been beaten with a pipe.She never asked to see and inspect the pipes that were claimed to have been used, but had told teachers that if there were pipes or sticks on the school grounds, they should be removed.Such items indeed made an appearance after that, and were thrown away, she related.She herself also saw pipes like that at the school, but did not actually count them, she said.She would for instance do class visits, and find pipes in the process, Hangula related.She said she learned of the beating that Uirab claims to have received only after the regional education office contacted her about it early last year.She then called both Tjatindi and the child to her office to enquire about the matter.Tjatindi told her that he could not remember beating the child, she said.According to Tjatindi’s counsel, Geoffrey Dicks, the teacher will tell the court that he has always denied beating Uirab, and that it is not a possibility that he may have beaten him but forgotten about it.Hangula’s response was that she was glad that she could be stating it in Tjatindi’s presence, but at the meeting in her office, he had said he could not remember.While Tjatindi has yet to testify, another child last week told the court that he was also slapped through the face and then whipped with a pipe on the same occasions as Uirab.Uirab has told the court that he was injured so badly that he had to receive medical treatment and could return to court only some five days later.The hearing of the case is scheduled to continue from Tuesday next week.The headmistress of Olof Palme Primary School in Windhoek, Julia Hangula, acknowledged past incidents of beatings by teachers at her school while testifying before Acting Judge Raymond Heathcote in the High Court last week.Hangula was the first witness to testify on behalf of the Education Minister in a case in which a former pupil, Kapurunje Uirab, is suing the Minister and a teacher, Aaron Tjatindi, for N$50 000.Uirab claims that Tjatindi gave him a series of beatings at the school on October 23 and 24 2003.Tjatindi and the Minister are denying it.If such beatings took place, it would have been against the law.Namibia’s Supreme Court declared corporal punishment in schools unconstitutional in early 1991.With a school of about 1 600 students – one of the biggest in Namibia – to run, it can be accepted that Hangula has a challenging task on her hands.Her strategy is to run the institution on Biblical terms, by encouraging people to apologise and forgive each other on occasions where someone has wronged another person, she explained to the court in her testimony last week.”I’m just trying to create peace and to run an institution in a peaceful atmosphere,” she stated.Part of her approach to running the school has been to teach the children, who are sometimes prone to fighting, that just like teachers are not allowed to beat children, they should also not fight each other, she told the Acting Judge.Repeatedly during her evidence, Hangula stated and restated that she was opposed to corporal punishment in her school, and had been since she joined the school in 1999.However, “some few cases” had come to light when parents approached the school to complain that their child had been beaten by a teacher, she added under cross-examination from Susan Vivier, the counsel representing Uirab.Some of the complaints were found to be true, she said.While she had heard complaints of beatings, she did not ask about the actual nature of the beatings, Hangula testified.She then volunteered: “Sometimes one cannot remember what was used; was it a slap, was it a pipe, was it a what?” Until that stage, the manner in which Uirab claims to have been beaten by Tjatindi – he alleges he was slapped through the face and then given a hiding with a piece of plastic pipe that had a wire inside – had not yet been put to Hangula.The principal also told the court that she could remember “two cases, or three” of complaints of children having been beaten with a pipe.She never asked to see and inspect the pipes that were claimed to have been used, but had told teachers that if there were pipes or sticks on the school grounds, they should be removed.Such items indeed made an appearance after that, and were thrown away, she related.She herself also saw pipes like that at the school, but did not actually count them, she said.She would for instance do class visits, and find pipes in the process, Hangula related.She said she learned of the beating that Uirab claims to have received only after the regional education office contacted her about it early last year.She then called both Tjatindi and the child to her office to enquire about the matter.Tjatindi told her that he could not remember beating the child, she said.According to Tjatindi’s counsel, Geoffrey Dicks, the teacher will tell the court that he has always denied beating Uirab, and that it is not a possibility that he may have beaten him but forgotten about it.Hangula’s response was that she was glad that she could be stating it in Tjatindi’s presence, but at the meeting in her office, he had said he could not remember.While Tjatindi has yet to testify, another child last week told the court that he was also slapped through the face and then whipped with a pipe on the same occasions as Uirab.Uirab
has told the court that he was injured so badly that he had to receive medical treatment and could return to court only some five days later.The hearing of the case is scheduled to continue from Tuesday next week.