Last week, we brought you news from a small town that was making big headlines.

A primary school teacher at Laerskool Schweizer-Reneke in the North West was suspended, after she shared a picture of a classroom where students appeared to be divided according to race on a WhatsApp group.

You’d think the people of that town would have learnt from Margaret van Wyk, but no.

The teacher in question, Elana Barkhuizen, was suspended pending an investigation conducted by the North West Education Department.

A few days later, and Barkhuizen has come forward to dispute the supposed facts of the incident, claiming that she was falsely accused, reports TimesLIVE.

The North West education department insisted on Tuesday that Schweizer-Reneke Grade R teacher Elana Barkhuizen would remain suspended despite claims that the wrong teacher had been sanctioned.

“It’s not like the MEC [Sello Lehari] had a crystal ball when he went to the school. He went to the school and asked what is going on? Why are black and white children being separated, whose classroom is this and who took the photographs?

“The name that was given to the MEC was that of Elana Barkhuizen,” Lehari’s spokesperson, Freddy Sepang, told Times Select.

Barkhuizen did take the photographs, but the classroom was not hers. The “offending teacher” is Elsabe Olivier who is still teaching at the school.

Dirk Herman, Solidarity’s chief executive, is disputing claims of racism levied against Barkhuizen.

“All that Elana did was go to her [Olivier’s] classroom and take photographs of the children. The photographs were shared with the parents of all Grade R children via a parent-teacher WhatsApp chat group.”

Herman, speaking to Times Select, said that, looking at all the photographs taken (including the one above), one could see the children sitting in Barkhuzien’s class were all integrated right from the beginning of the day.

Sure, the school might need to address some issues, and the community at large has spoken about a lack of integration, but Barkhuizen was thrown to the wolves without anything close to a proper investigation taking place.

Herman plans to launch an urgent court application this week to challenge the suspension. He argues that Barkhuizen is being used as a “sacrificial lamb” for political ends.

Barhuizen pleaded her innocence in an emotional press conference yesterday:

In the press conference, Barkhuizen says that Grade R learners on their first day at school were mercilessly exploited on a day which should have been exciting.

Here’s News24:

“The result – traumatised children crying and looking at me for consolation and me trying to calm them down while my life is being destroyed,” Barkhuizen said.

“I do not know what the people who tried to ruin my life wanted to achieve. I just know that I had to stand and watch powerlessly how I was being judged from a stage.”

More investigations are underway, and the North West Education Department still doesn’t have a crystal ball, so there’s no telling how this will play out.

All we know is that someone sniffed the opportunity to score cheap political points, and from there it usually tends to snowball.

[sources:timeslive&news24]