Grey, Collegiate matric pupils investigated for 'turkey incident'

Matric pupils at two of Gqeberha's top schools have come under fire after a pair of turkeys had to be rescued from the bottom of an empty school pool on Wednesday.

The incident, which formed part of the “40 days” celebrations by some pupils — which marks out the end of the matric period, before sitting down to write the final exams — is being investigated by the Eastern Cape department of education.

The barbaric incident, involving pupils from Grey High School and Collegiate Girls' High School, were brought to light by animal activist Arnold Slabbert, who was called to Collegiate to remove the turkeys on Wednesday morning.

In an internal letter signed by Grey rector Christian Erasmus and school governing body chair Garth Morris, they described the behaviour of a select number of pupils as “deplorable” and “contrary to the ethos and values of our school”.

“While we do not yet have a full picture of the events, a group of our grade 12 boys and some Collegiate girls entered our campus and proceeded to vandalise it by spreading toilet paper, soap, flour, raw eggs and the like around campus, as well as entering classrooms where they turned desks upside down.

“Most concerning was that a very small minority decided to release livestock, both on our campus and on that of Collegiate. In so doing, they displayed a reprehensible and sickening disregard for the animals.

“The appalling behaviour that has been reported has no place at our school, or anywhere else for that matter,” the letter further reads.

In a similar communication sent out by Collegiate principal Louise Erasmus, she wrote that “40 days” was meant to be a time for celebration.

“Regrettably a group of Collegiate learners together with a group of Grey learners allegedly chose to follow their own path and came onto the property of both schools during the night. 

“There was vandalism to our properties and the most extreme and horrifying cruelty to livestock,” Erasmus said.

Slabbert said he had been called in by the caretaker of a prominent high school on Wednesday. He did not name the school.

“The poor man was almost crying there was so damage the vandals had done.

“The sports courts had been trashed.

“I had to remove a pair of turkeys which he had rescued from the bottom of the empty school pool. Their legs had been tied up and they had been tossed in the same way they did with some chickens at another high school recently.

“It's disgusting. The only thing that saved the birds this time was that the pool was empty.”

The mayhem had apparently begun at Grey earlier in the week.

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