GOSSIP DESTROYING SCHOOL

Sir,

Writing on behalf of other concerned parents, may I bring to the attention of the public the unprofessional nature of some teachers at a certain high school in the Shiselweni region. Both male and female teachers treat parents, colleagues and even pupils with so much disdain.

Teachers in this school thrive on gossiping about other teachers. The staffroom, where most of the preparation for lesson plans is supposed to take place has been turned into a gossip den, where back-stabbing and conspiracy thrives. This has been going on for many years now.

Young teachers arriving at the school are usually almost immediately recruited into this damaging evil. Sometimes these teachers even take their gossip to pupils about the other teachers. Obviously this affects the respect those pupils will have for their teachers and it makes the working conditions unbearable.

Last year one of the teachers, who has since been transferred to another school in the same region, formed a WhatsApp group for teachers, where all the gossiping would supposedly take place. The teacher, being the admin of this group, would gather any form of information on teachers and feed it to the forum for gossip. Whatever went into the forum would somehow leak to the pupils, making some teachers’ lives miserable.
The deputy head teacher of the school has been one of the unfortunate victims of this evil.

He has been threatened with death and insulted anonymously by these teachers using hidden cellphone numbers. Now he lies ill at his home, allegedly suffering from stress.

We need help at this school; it has to be investigated thoroughly so this can come to an end. The level of rot that is taking place here is appalling as teachers have become a law unto themselves. A thing like this affects the performance of the school and our children become the innocent victims who are caught in the cross fire.

I wonder whether the teachers know the extent of damage this forum has caused to certain teachers and their families. As parents, we urge the administration to intervene and dismantle this WhatsApp group and discourage teachers from damaging one another with hatred and gossip.

Worried parent, Hluti

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