A TEACHER got into a fist fight with a pupil on Monday over his height.
The teacher lost his temper when the 15-year-old told him he was too short and a boy in the class was taller than him!
It happened at Nqabakazulu High School in KwaMashu, north of Durban.
The teacher allegedly lost it and gave the pupil a hot klap.
“He was so angry that, after klapping the pupil, he grabbed him by the throat and told him to repeat what he’d just said,” a witness told Daily Sun.
“Some of us got up and tried to stop him from injuring the pupil.”
The angry pupil started weeping and threw a quick punch between the teacher’s eyes!
“The pupil tried to flee but we caught him and brought him back to class,” said the witness.
The teacher left immediately after he’d been punched.
“Other teachers came to the class and asked us about the incident,” he said.
“We told them everything but they said our class was being disrespectful.”
The incident happened towards the end of the day and pupils were then dismissed.
But when they got to school yesterday, expecting to be taught, all the teachers were in the staffroom and refused to come out.
“They said they won’t teach rude kids who beat teachers, but we feel this isn’t fair because it was wrong of the teacher to hit a pupil.”
He said the teacher started the trouble but the whole school was suffering now.
When the SunTeam visited the school yesterday, pupils were loafing about. Sulking teachers did not want to step out of the staffroom.
KZN Education MEC Mthandeni Dlungwane’s spokesman, Kwazi Mthethwa, said: “We’ve not received such reports but can already say upfront that if there are allegations of assault and abuse of power, we’ll definitely attend to the matter and act decisively.”
