Teacher allegedly beats pupil to death

Lindiwe Mozola | Thursday March 9, 2017 18:00

 

Palapye Police station commander, Superintendent Waboraro Ramaja told Mmegi yesterday that police were investigating the pupil’s death to find out its cause.

“I can confirm that we received a report on Monday morning about the death of a Standard 3 Serorome Primary School pupil who passed away on Sunday and investigations are still ongoing to establish the cause of death,” he said.

He dismissed allegations that they have arrested or are questioning the teacher who is alleged to have beaten the deceased to death with a stick, saying that the post-mortem was yet to confirm the cause of death of the deceased.

Information gathered by Mmegi, however, alleges that the young girl’s teacher beat her with a stick on her head last Tuesday.  From that point on, the young girl complained of headaches. Mmegi is reliably informed that the girl’s mother administered over-the -counter pain medication as she believed the headaches would go away with time.

“The girl missed school on Wednesday last week. On Thursday the mother went to see the teacher regarding the beating and the teacher allegedly admitted to beating the child on the head.

“Both the teacher and the mother did not take this seriously and thought she would recover with time,” said a source close to the incident.

On Sunday, the child continually complained of severe headaches during church service and on the way back home that afternoon.

“She collapsed in the back seat of the car and began struggling for breath. The mother asked the person who had given them a lift home to rush them to the hospital where the girl was pronounced dead on arrival.”

Palapye sub-district chief education officer, Otukile Kedikilwe professed ignorance about the allegations that the teacher had beaten the child to death. He said the only report received was that a pupil at the school had passed away.

“We received the report that the Serorome Standard 3 pupil passed on last Sunday and she died while at home. If she died in school perhaps we would have a better explanation as to what happened.

At this particular juncture, we do not have any information of what caused her death and we are also waiting for the post-mortem results from the hospital,” he said.