LIKE a wildly combed-out Afro, reaction to the hair protest has spread all around the country.
“We need action now, not later!” said Gauteng Cosas secretary Benedict Phalane in Tshwane yesterday.
About 400 pupils from different schools marched to the Pretoria High School for Girls yesterday.
This follows a visit by Gauteng MEC for Education Panyaza Lesufi to the school.
Sipho Mabena, a director at the department of basic education, received the marchers’ memorandum on behalf of the MEC.
Lesufi had meetings at the school with various groups.
He released a statement saying he will lodge a formal investigation by an independent body which should take 21 days.
- EASTERN CAPE: EFF supporters disrupted exams at Lawson Brown High School in North End, Port Elizabeth yesterday morning.
They were joined by residents and parents as well as pupils who were banned from writing exams because of their hairstyles.
The EFF members kicked the pupils out of exam rooms while parents, residents and the pupils demanded to be allowed back into the school.
Grade 12 pupil Unathi Gongxeka (18) said a teacher told her to relax her hair to make it more beautiful.
“I told her I will write exams with this hairstyle whether she likes it or not,” said Unathi.
Nelson Mandela Bay EFF chairman Lukhanyo Mrara said: “We could not allow our kids to be discriminated against because of their hair.”
George Lukwe, acting district director at the department of education, said: “We do not allow any school to rule against the type of hair which is the choice of a particular culture.”
The school’s principal, Donovan Cairncross, said the clause about hairstyle in the school code will be reworked.
“We apologise for the harm that may have been caused by this policy.”
- FREE STATE: The education department promised to deal with issues at schools after St Michael’s High School pupils complained on Monday about having their hair measured to see if it fitted into a swimming cap.
Department of education spokesman Howard Ndaba said they had held a meeting with the parents and recommended that hair measuring be suspended until further notice.
