Hatfield Junior teacher appears in court

Michael Mashiri

A Hatfield Junior School senior teacher has been remanded out of custody for ill-treating a Grade Four pupil at the school.

Phydelia Chizunza (59), appeared before the Harare Magistrates’ Court charged with ill-treating a child as defined in Section 7 (1) of the children's Act Chapter 5:06.

The court heard that on 11 November, 2022, at Hatfield Junior School in Harare, Chizunza unlawfully and intentionally ill-treated Adel Ncube of Cranborne in Harare, a juvenile aged 10 years.

Chizunza forced Ncube to remove her T-shirt in front of other schoolchildren, including boys and forced her to sweep the school grounds using naked hands.

This was after the accused, who is a senior teacher and chairperson of the discipline committee at the school, was left in charge of the school by the head.

Around 1000 hours, at break time, Ncube was in her classroom eating when three Grade Six boys entered, grabbed her by her hands and dragged her to Chizunza, who was outside the classroom, accusing her of putting on a blue collar T-shirt, which is not part of their school uniform.

Chizunza forced Ncube to remove her T-shirt, she complied, fearing she would be beaten by the accused, who was already threatening to assault her.

The other boys also removed their T-shirts which were not part of the school uniform.

Ncube took her track jacket and put on and the other pupils were laughing at her. Chizunza instructed Ncube to go and attend her lessons and that she would come back later to do her punishment.

Ncube stated that she went back at 1300hours that is when Chizunza asked her and other students to sweep the grounds using naked hands.

The complainant stated that her father came looking for her and he was told about the abuse by the other schoolchildren.

The complainant was accompanied by her father to the police and filed a report.

Magistrate Dennis Mangosi remanded the case to 4 January, 2023 because of pending investigations.