Parents blame witchcraft for school in Leandra’s poor matric results

Parents disrupted teaching and learning at Chief Ampie Mayisa Secondary School in Leandra on February 19, alleging that someone is practicing witchcraft at school.

The parents and learners blocked the school’s entrance, demanding an explanation from the school principal.
They stuck it out until the police and circuit office intervened.

According to these parents, their children reported to have found a torn chicken and its inners in one of the classrooms.

The children claim to have seen blood all over their classroom.

“This witchcraft began some years ago,” a concerned parent told Ridge Times.

“Our children are collapsing in class every day.”

This parent said she was summoned to school last year after her child collapsed.

“I was met with a scary scene. Some learners were crying while others were screaming. This never happened to my child at home and it was a terrible experience,” said the parent.

Other parents told Ridge Times that the school is cursed because of witchcraft and rituals being performed, but could not name the culprits.

They blame the school’s poor performance in matric exams on witchcraft and rituals performed at the school.

Traphinah Mkhonza is the chairperson of the local Traditional Healers Organisation. She also strongly believes that the events at the school are strictly related to witchcraft and rituals.

Mkhonza said there are no ancestors at the school because building is public property and does not belong to an individual surname or family.

“These days we have people who will do anything for money. These are bogus traditional healers.”

Mkhonza accused these “bogus” healers of luring learners to become sangomas and to force their parents to pay for the initiation.

“In most instances the learners begin to scream and faint at schools, and their speech makes no sense because they are possessed by the demons of the bogus healer.”

Mkhonza said parents cannot differentiate between good and bogus traditional healers,.

“That’s where they fall into the trap and are told that their children need to perform rituals to become sangomas. This is why we see so many young sangomas in our townships,” explained Mkhonza.

“These bogus healers are everywhere and their targets are schools and other vulnerable individuals,” said Mkhonza.

She explained that traditionally, if found that a child has an ancestral calling to become a sangoma or a traditional healer, it is responsibility of the parents to perform ancestral rituals.

“The parents must tell the ancestors that they don’t deny their child to respond to the calling, but ask that the child first complete school.”

When Ridge Times arrived at the school that day, learners were holding up a girl who had collapsed.

The police were called to the school and the Department of Education was forced to intervene. A post on Ridge Times’ Facebook page piqued a lot of interest from readers.

One of the many comments was from Johannes Mabapa, who wrote of one night seeing a black snake raising its hood in the road and then slithering into the school’s premises.

This description solicited several comments from other readers. The similar incident happened at Ikusasalethu Secondary School in eMbalenhle last year.

A learner climbed to the roof of the three-story school building and threatened to jump. The police, firefighters and other emergency personnel were summoned to the school along with traditional healers and pastors.

One traditional healer used a whistle to fight the demons or spirits until the boy fell off the roof.
Emergency workers blocked the boy’s fall and he was not injured.

The Department of Basic Education spokesperson, Jasper Zwane, said the department was informed about the development at school in Leandra and subsequently, the circuit manager met with the school governing body, including parents, to listen to their concerns but the engagements could not resolve the issue.

Zwane said the discussions are ongoing and the circuit manager saw it necessary that the principal in the meantime report to the circuit office. He said teaching and learning has resumed and the department is closely monitoring the situation.

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