The South African Union Council of Independent Churches (SAUCIC) has expressed concern over the surge of sexual misconduct cases involving teachers on Tuesday, 09 September 2025.
The SAUCIC said the recently reported statistics of sexual misconduct shows that it has rocked the education sector and it is a national crisis.
SAUCIC President, Cardinal Archbishop Dr Modiri Patrick Shole appealed to education authorities, school governing bodies and stakeholders to confront and deal decisively with the pandemic.
“They also suggest that abuse of vulnerable girl children within the school system is committed with impunity hence teenage pregnancies which can be attributed to the sugar daddy syndrome and unacceptable child grooming are on the rise,” emphasised Dr Shole on behalf of affiliated Federations of Charismatic, Evangelical Outreach Mission Ministries and Pentecostal Churches.
This comes after the Education Labour Relation Council (ELRC) for 2024/2025 financial year revealed that KwaZulu Natal tops the list of reported incidents.
Forty educators were reportedly found guilty in 114 cases from the province referred to the ELRC-most of whom were dismissed.
Shole said that regular updates of the National Sexual Offences Register will ensure that the dismissed educators do not find their way back into the public education system or private school sector including the early childhood development centres.
“Proper vetting processes and procedures should be in place to safeguard the safety of our learners against sexual predators whose unprofessional conduct has undermined the loco parentis principle and the need to maintain a professional relationship with learners entrusted to their care as per the South African Council of Educators (SACE) Code of Professional Ethics,” he pointed out.
He stressed that an intensive rights advocacy campaign needs to be rolled out to ensure that learners that have had to endure traumatic experiences at the hands of teachers who have betrayed their trust speak out for them to receive psychosocial counselling support in order to find closure and justice.
The SAUCIC national spokesperson Lesiba Kgwele said churches should support School Governing Bodies (SGB).
“Shole called on churches to support school authorities and School Governing Bodies and to be part of the value driven schools programme intervention plan aimed at enhancing sound values as well as ethical leadership and conduct,” said Kgwele.
He underscored that the National Dialogue process presents opportunities for a broad spectrum of stakeholders including business, the academia, organised labour, young people, including civil society organisations and traditional leaders to contribute solutions to the challenges facing the education and other sectors.
