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SCHOOLS SUFFER RACISM

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Board member of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation Neeshen Balton said the foundation has learned much from years of fighting racism. Photo by        Collen Mashaba
Board member of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation Neeshen Balton said the foundation has learned much from years of fighting racism. Photo by Collen Mashaba

RACISM is still common at some schools.

The Ahmed Kathrada Foundation on Friday said this when it revealed what it had found in its years of fighting racism.

The foundation said some teachers and management at schools did not know how to deal with racism and ended up tolerating it.

Foundation spokesman Neeshen Balton said this had led to situations where different races used different staff rooms, microwaves and even had separate year-end functions.

Balton would not reveal the names of the schools where this happened, but said most of them were in Gauteng and Western Cape.

He said these situations led to pupils making friends only from their own race.

“Some schools lack the capacity to deal with racism.

“We have an ongoing dialogue with these schools to fully address the issues and at some schools tension has subsided,” said Balton.

“It also depends on the school leadership. When the leadership is weak these are the results.”

He said it also appeared that some education district offices did not have the necessary capacity to deal with racism.

“At these schools, pupils never get to learn and appreciate diversity,” he said.

“This kind of behaviour will remain after school and they will take it to their workplace.”

The foundation has been organising educational talks across the country under the theme #RootOutRacism and it recently launched the Zimele app to report incidents of racism.

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