Maybe uncover some new cases of abuse instead of rehashing the old ones?

I’ve watched the first two episodes of the School Ties series on M-Net and find myself wondering what the point of it is.

Child abuse, sexual and other, is entirely reprehensible and it must be rooted out by whatever means. The power that coaches and teachers have over the children in their care can be abused, and that is happening in schools, and sports clubs.

There have been enough cases in the media to show that this has happened in some of the so-called elite schools in this country and, clearly, schools have a duty to ensure that these things should never happen in their communities.

That’s non-debatable. But why, I wonder, is M-Net regurgitating cases from the not so recent past? Apart from anything else, it’s lazy journalism. The two episodes so far deal with the David McKenzie affair at St Andrew’s College and Collan Rex’s conviction of hundreds of cases at Parktown Boys’ High. Both of those were covered in the My Only Story podcast three years ago, and in the press. They were repeated in an edition of Carte Blanche earlier this year. Samantha Cowan wrote a book (her School Ties title has been appropriated for this series) and she features on camera in the Parktown episode, repeating her conclusions.

Episode two ended with a teaser indicating that the next story will be that of the tragic events at St John’s Prep School and College, which were also aired in that Carte Balance edition.

There’s no harm in retelling these stories and in analysing their significance, again and again - if they act as a cautionary tale and constantly sharpen awareness among children and their parents. I think it might have been more valuable, however, if the makers of this series had rather gone looking for other incidents (and the experts quoted intimate that these things are quite common in our schools).

The real problem, I feel, is that the schools involved are not being helped by the re-opening of these cases. There doesn’t seem to be much confidence in their ability to proceed down a different path, committed to being the sorts of places where these things cannot happen again. 

The statements by the schools are displayed, without comment, but I get the feeling that they are being perceived as empty promises. Whether those cases were rogue outliers or part of an established toxic system, as alleged by some of the experts, the schools now have a duty to carry on educating their learners in many complex ways. That’s difficult enough without being made to account again for matters closed some time ago, and without being left alone to carry on with the process of rebuilding and continuing to safeguard those in their care.

I also have a particular problem with something that was said at the end of the 1st episode. Deon Wiggett, the My Only Story man, fires a broadside at the sport of water polo and, in it, he repeats the statement he made in the last of those podcasts that Mark Evans, a teacher and polo coach at DSG in Grahamstown, had been accused of inappropriate behaviour by some of the girls he coached.

Evans was suspended by the school, pending a Disciplinary Enquiry. In January 2022 I got hold of a letter sent to the DSG community by the headmaster in which he details the process followed in the enquiry (a legally sound and exhaustive one) and announces that Evans was found not guilty of all the charges.

He quotes the findings of Advocate Ryno Eksteen, the independent chairman of the DE:

He was satisfied that the evidence presented did not support the conclusion that the teacher concerned had acted inappropriately or had failed to conform to DSG’s standards of conduct and the SACE Code of Conduct in his interaction with learners.

He specifically found no evidence of the teacher making undue physical contact with learners or intruding on their dignity in any manner (whether while coaching water polo or in the classroom).

In a letter to its parents, written after the airing of the School Ties programme, the school explains that while the investigation initiated by DSG was being conducted and the disciplinary enquiry concluded, the South African Council for Educators (SACE) was conducting its own investigation, which was concluded in March 2022. On 25 May 2022, DSG received the findings of the SACE Ethics Committee in a formal communication, which informed the school that an investigation into the allegations had been conducted, and the Council could not find sufficient evidence to substantiate the allegations. On 31 March 2022, the Ethics Committee deliberated on the matter and recommended that the file be closed pending new/tangible information. 

As a result of those findings Evans was reinstated as a teacher. Is repeating the allegations, despite the exoneration, permissible? Surely it can’t be left there?

I assume M-Net is getting the viewership numbers it is hoping for with this production. I wonder where they will be going to after St John’s. Will they then do their jobs as investigative journalists and uncover a new case? And will they leave the schools already affected alone to carry out the duty of care that we all demand of them?