DA MP Karabo Khakhau has called on higher education minister Buti Manamela to launch an immediate investigation into how sexual harassment cases are being handled at Capricorn TVET College in Polokwane. In a letter addressed to the minister, Khakhau said the portfolio committee on higher education and training uncovered troubling details during its oversight visit to the college on January 28. During the visit, the committee was told about a sexual harassment case involving a female student and a male tutor appointed by the college council.
Khakhau said the committee was informed that the case was investigated and that the tutor was found guilty, which he admitted to. However, the sanction imposed was “merely a one-month suspension period and a written warning”. The principal’s outlook on GBV and all acts of sexual harassment poses a serious safety risk for all students and employees within the institution.
Khakhau questioned the leniency of the punishment, saying that the college principal, Lekau Mamabolo, had failed to align the institution with the department of higher education and training’s 2020 GBV policy framework, which declares zero tolerance for sexual harassment in the post-school education and training sector. “The principal and accounting officer of this institution, Mr Lekau Mamabolo, made it clear to the portfolio committee that he did not seek recourse beyond the investigation recommendations,” said Khakhau. She added that Mamabolo told the committee that “had the victim been his own daughter, he would have handled the matter differently, with more compassion and energy to root out the perpetrator from all fabrics of the institution”.
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She said this showed a clear failure to uphold departmental policies on gender-based violence. “The principal’s outlook on GBV and all acts of sexual harassment poses a serious safety risk for all students and employees within the institution,” said Khakhau. She added that his leadership showed “no appetite for the institution to apply the 2022 Progress Report on Gender Transformation Investigation in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Colleges compiled by the South African Commission for Gender Equality and its recommendations”. “Minister, it serves the sector and republic no good to have a principal whose attitude towards dealing with sexual harassment and GBV in his institution is inconsistent with your department’s policy framework,” she said.
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