The teacher described the pupil as physically and mentally mature for her age.
The Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) has sanctioned the dismissal of a 28-year-old Soweto high school teacher after he fathered a child with a pupil from different school.
The teacher was found guilty on two counts of misconduct by an ELRC arbitrator following disciplinary proceedings initiated by the Gauteng Department of Education.
The hearing concluded on 7 August.
Pupil’s testimony
During arbitration, the pupil, who was 16 years old at the time, recounted meeting the teacher in late 2022 while on her way to a spaza shop with her sister.
The teacher asked for her contact details and they met later that day.
She explained that two weeks later, they met again to hang out, during which they consumed alcohol and engaged in recreational activities.
They subsequently had sex, and she later discovered she was pregnant.
She revealed that when the teacher learned of her age, he ceased communication in January 2023, although he was unaware of her pregnancy at the time.
The pupil said the teacher disagreed with her intention to have an abortion, and she gave birth to their son in August 2023.
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She testified that she had not disclosed her age because she did not consider the relationship to be serious.
The teenager, now 18 and turning 19 later this year, also confirmed she never met the teacher in her school uniform.
She said her two sisters knew about the relationship, while her mother only knew she was seeing a man who owned a car and sometimes collected her from home.
The pupil further testified that while she was pregnant, the teacher accompanied her to a clinic.
However, she denied him access to her medical records, saying it was no longer his concern since their relationship had ended.
She added he supported the child after birth and that her mother reported the matter in December 2024.
Mother’s testimony
The pupil’s mother testified that she became aware of the relationship after noticing changes in her daughter’s body around February 2023.
She said she was unaware that the teacher was significantly older.
After her daughter confessed, she went to the teacher’s school to confront him, and he did not deny the pregnancy.
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The mother said she later visited the teacher’s home to discuss customary damages for the pregnancy.
She testified that she would not have reported him if he had continued providing financial support, which ended with the last payment in October 2024.
Teacher’s testimony
The teacher, then aged 26, testified that the pupil had told him she was a student at Rosebank College.
He described the pupil as physically and mentally mature for her age, noting that she was larger in build than her older sister.
He said he discovered her age through a friend dating one of the pupil’s sisters and immediately contacted her via text to confront her, at which point she confirmed she was a high school student.
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The teacher also said he knew the pupil only by a fake name until he received the audi letter.
He further claimed that the mother demanded immediate payment of customary damages and repeatedly threatened to report him to the Gauteng Department of Education.
ELRC findings
In its judgment, the ELRC arbitrator rejected the provincial department’s argument that the teacher knew the pupil’s age, but chose to ignore that fact.
“[This] stands to be rejected because it is not supported by the evidence before me.”
The arbitrator also dismissed the teacher’s argument that the mother had an ulterior motive for reporting the matter, saying it “is irrelevant”.
It was also emphasised that the teacher had a legal obligation to ascertain the age and scholar status of the pupil.
“The defence of ‘I did not know’, ‘I was drinking with her’ or that the child looked like an adult, can never be sustained,” the judgment reads.
The teacher was found guilty on both charges, with the arbitrator concluding that immediate dismissal was the appropriate sanction.
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