RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

More trou­bling al­le­ga­tions are com­ing from Siparia West Sec­ondary af­ter a teacher has been ac­cused of sex­u­al­ly ha­rass­ing fe­male stu­dents.

A re­li­able source told Guardian Me­dia that four com­plaints have been lodged at the school but no ac­tion has been tak­en against the teacher.

Sev­er­al emails that the teacher sent to a stu­dent be­came pub­lic af­ter a par­ent be­came aware of it. The source added that stu­dents are afraid of the teacher, who pa­trols a sec­tion of the school. The first in­ci­dent oc­curred the last term when stu­dents re­turned for face-to-face class­es.

“The fe­male stu­dents feel un­com­fort­able and they com­plain about it. This teacher joined the staff two years ago when the school had vir­tu­al class­es.

“This teacher is al­ways on Block E ha­rass­ing fe­male stu­dents and this is the fourth re­port that a stu­dent has made about him. There are emails sent from the teacher to one fe­male stu­dent that the ad­min­is­tra­tion knows about. The teacher is al­ways on the block ha­rass­ing the girls,” the source said.

On­ly one adult even con­front­ed the teacher and threat­ened to re­port him to the po­lice.

Guardian Me­dia was al­so in­formed that fe­male staff mem­bers are al­so un­com­fort­able around the teacher and have ex­pressed con­cerns to the prin­ci­pal that the mat­ter is not be­ing prop­er­ly ad­dressed.

“The teacher is frater­nising with stu­dents dur­ing re­cess and lunchtime. He is al­ways on and off the com­pound.

“He signs the reg­is­ter very ear­ly but dur­ing the day he is some­times not in school. No­body is do­ing any­thing to fix that school,” the source added.

How­ev­er, checks by Guardian Me­dia re­vealed that no re­port was made.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on the is­sue, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gadsy-Dol­ly said the re­ports of sex­u­al ha­rass­ment have not come to her.

“There are strict pro­ce­dures to deal with such mat­ters once such a re­port is re­ceived,” she said.