A teacher who was rehired by the Gauteng education department after abruptly resigning before he could face a disciplinary hearing for alleged sexual harassment was fired again — this time for “hugging” a 16-year-old girl at his new school.
The reappointment of David Diholo to Forest High in Johannesburg in 2016, two years after he had been fired as a deputy principal at Senaoane Secondary in Soweto, has been slammed by non-governmental organisations.
Labour court judge Edwin Tlhotlhalemaje this month dismissed Diholo’s application to set aside an arbitration award handed down in May 2019 that terminated his services at Forest High after he was found guilty of sexually harassing the grade 9 pupil.
In his judgment, Tlhotlhalemaje said that “it is a mystery as to why and how the applicant [Diholo] again found himself in the employ of the department at a different school in 2016”.
But the Gauteng education department told the Sunday Times that Diholo resigned before the allegation of sexual harassment could be proved, “therefore there was no reason to decline his re-employment”.
The department’s spokesperson Steve Mabona said: “There was no justifiable reason not to re-employ him.”
He said the department had asked the South African Council for Educators (Sace) to investigate an allegation of sexual harassment against Diholo.
Mabona said no official faced any consequences for appointing Diholo at Forest High because “no offence was committed”.
It was readily conceded on behalf of the department that these monumental lapses on its part were as a result of the lack of due diligence
— Labour court judge Edwin Tlhotlhalemaje
But Tlhotlhalemaje said “it was readily conceded on behalf of the department that these monumental lapses on its part were as a result of the lack of due diligence in its recruitment processes, especially within an education environment”.
“Be that as it may, and to the extent that Diholo did not avail himself to fully answer to the allegations against him in 2014, it is apparent that there appeared to be a pattern of inappropriate conduct towards learners in his spell as an educator.”
He said that documentation was discovered by the department during the Education Labour Relations Council’s pre-arbitration meeting in 2019 revealing that “there were previous allegations of sexual harassment made against Diholo by a learner at Senaoane Secondary”.
The department issued a notice of discharge against Diholo on August 31 2014.
The judge said that the girl from Forest High testified during the arbitration hearing that Diholo, who was her natural sciences teacher, had a habit of “high fiving” the learners at the end of classes.
“Things, however, changed at the beginning of the third term in 2018 when he, other than ‘high-fiving’ her, would then insist on giving her a hug which she innocently considered to be ‘fatherly’.”
This behaviour persisted and other learners noticed she was being treated differently by Diholo and started insinuating that she was having an inappropriate relationship.
She said a day before the final exams, Diholo asked her to follow him to his classroom and that on their way she met a friend and asked her to accompany her.
According to the judgment, Diholo asked them whether they were involved in romantic relationships and whether they were sexually active.
“The complainant’s response was that she was lesbian and was not interested in boys, but however that she was not sexually active.”
As she was about to leave, Diholo approached her, “gave her a hug and a squeeze”.
He testified that there was nothing unusual with his habit of regularly giving his pupils “high-fives”, handshakes and hugs as he considered them to be his children.
Diholo denied he had ever kissed or “squeezed” pupils when hugging them.
Tlhotlhalemaje said that “clearly on the facts, the applicant [Diholo] has no reason to be anywhere near learners after the incident in 2014”.
Meanwhile, Diholo said he received the letter of suspension at Senaone Secondary on the day he was forcefully removed from the school by people wearing Cosas (Congress of South African Students) T-shirts.
“They accused me of being responsible for the principal’s suspension and fabricated an allegation that I touched a girl to get rid of me from the school.”
He said following his removal from the school, he became depressed and booked into a hospital. “I resigned just to clear my mind but also because I believed I would not get a fair trial.”
He said immediately after resigning, he asked the department for the name of the complainant and the written complaint against him “but nothing was forthcoming”.
“Did they ever have a case of sexual harassment against me at Senaone Secondary if they allowed me to come back? Up to now, I haven’t seen the charge.”
Zeenat Sujee, an attorney with Section27, said it “is disappointing and infuriating that the Gauteng education department adopts such a nonchalant attitude to gender-based violence”.
“Teachers are in loco parentis, and the department must ensure schools are safe for learners. The department continues to fail to adopt strict vetting processes when appointing staff at schools.”
Charlene Kreuser, an attorney at the Legal Resources Centre’s Cape Town office, said the NGO was “deeply concerned” that there had been previous allegations of sexual harassment against Diholo in 2014.
“Despite this, the educator was employed by the same department at a different school. Had the department and Sace acted swiftly, this learner [at Forest High] would not have been exposed to the teacher in a place where she should have been safe.”
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