In South Africa, an arbitrator of the Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) upheld the dismissal of Tshwane North TVET college lecturer Nkotsane Ephraim Malepe. The arbitrator found that the lecturer sexually harassed a student and compromised the integrity of the assessment of academic work.
WhatsApp messages
As TimesLIVE reports, Malepe was a civil engineering lecturer at the college’s Mamelodi campus. He was dismissed following disciplinary proceedings over alleged sexual harassment and irregularities during assessment. He later challenged the dismissal at the ELRC, calling it unfair, but arbitrator Gcina Maphani dismissed the application.
Maphani found that Malepe repeatedly messaged a student on WhatsApp after she declined his offer to meet. The arbitrator noted that the case should be considered in light of the unequal positions of the lecturer and the student. In his view, bringing the academic relationship into the proposed private communication breached professional boundaries.
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Malepe denied sending inappropriate messages and questioned the authenticity of part of the correspondence. At the same time, the arbitrator found that the department’s version was supported by testimony from the student and another student who had seen some of the messages.
Assessment irregularities
Separately, Maphani concluded that Malepe compromised the integrity of the building drawing assessment. According to the arbitrator’s findings, he allowed students to improve or rewrite answers using marking schemes, inadequately supervised the assessment, and allowed one student to complete work on behalf of another.
The ruling also states that some work went missing and that students did not have proper access to marked work or sufficient feedback. Malepe rejected these allegations as well, while several students who testified in his defence said they had not seen any irregularities or favouritism. However, the arbitrator ruled that the Gauteng Department of Higher Education had proven the misconduct on a balance of probabilities, and that dismissal was an appropriate measure.
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