THOHOYANDOU - Pupils and staff members of the Marude Secondary School for Science, Commerce and Technology in Thohoyandou are still shocked after pupils were caught 'red-handed' while having sex in the music hall on Valentine's Day.

The school's acting principal, Mr Nelson Dagada, confirmed that a security guard discovered children having sex. This happened after the children had refused to attend classes, while demanding to stage a Valentine's bash at the school.

"It is true that there were children who were found having sex in the music hall. A security guard who was patrolling the school at about 15:00 found the pupils. What happened is that the children said they wanted to stage a Valentine's beauty pageant during school hours, which we denied. However, these children continued to organise the show, until a day before, when they went to the teacher responsible for staging of social functions. He talked to me, and I told him that we had not given permission to stage such a function at our school," said Dagada.

He also confirmed that there had been no normal schooling at Marude on that day, as the children wanted to have their Valentine's bash, instead of attending classes.

The situation nearly became ugly when a professional dancer, JR, who had been invited by the pupils, arrived and demanded money from the principal. JR, who also dances for Arthur Mafakote, was then given his money by the pupils, who collected it within a short space of time, even though he did not dance as the bash was cancelled.

Two pairs of children who are doing grade eight were then found having sex. Dagada, who expressed shock about the incident, said he wrote letters to the parents informing them of the situation and distancing the school from the incident. "We wrote letters to inform parents that we do not support such things in our school. We were also shocked to find that the perpetrators are in Grade 8 and 9. These children are very young. This is not a common practice."

The chairman of SGB, Thivhulawi Tshilate, who blamed the incident on a lack of teachers at the school, said he only received the information from the principal verbally. Tshilate, who said he was still waiting to get a written report about the matter, said that they would sit down as parents and school management and see what they could do.

Both parents and the principal confirmed that the latest incident was not the first one of a sexual kind, as children were found with pornographic pictures in a computer lab a year ago.

Meanwhile, the security guard who caught the children said the children have been having sex on the school premises since last year. He said he decided to inform the management, because he thought it was immoral for children of such tender age to be engaged in sexual intercourse.

In his response, the Superintendent General for Education in the Limpopo Province, Prof Harry Nenngwekhulu, said the regional office was handling the issue.