What the department says about WhatsApp in schools
The Department of Basic Education is working on guidelines to govern how teachers and learners communicate on WhatsApp, after reports of inappropriate conduct on the platform.
Likho Bottoman, deputy director for social mobilisation and support services in the department, set out the thinking in an interview with Newzroom Afrika. She proposed establishing official school channels so that communication does not happen through private messages.
Bottoman said the profession’s conduct rules are clear about classroom behaviour but less settled online. She said technological platforms are informal by nature, and that in their informality there is also a lack of accountability.
She said the department recognises that most serving teachers were not trained to use technology platforms in their practice.
Nothing has been published. There is no draft document, no consultation period, no timeline, and no indication of whether the guidelines will be binding or advisory.
For parents, that means the position today is unchanged. A teacher who is in a WhatsApp group with a class, or messaging a learner directly, is operating under the rules that already apply rather than any new ones.
Why an outright ban is not on the table
Asked directly whether one-on-one WhatsApp conversations between teachers and learners should be explicitly banned, Bottoman did not support that.
She said there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and gave a specific reason. Many children in South African schools have no psychosocial support at home, and a teacher is sometimes the only adult they can talk to.
Restricting teachers to schoolwork only, she said, would mean “you are actually closing off an opportunity for that child to have an outlet”.
That position is likely to be contested. It sets a child protection argument against a child welfare argument, using the same platform.
The alternative the department appears to favour is structural rather than prohibitive. Official school channels create a record, which is what private one-to-one messaging does not.
The rules that already exist, and what SACE enforces
Teacher conduct toward learners is already regulated. Every registered educator in South Africa is bound by the South African Council for Educators Code of Professional Ethics under the SACE Act 31 of 2000.
The Code requires that an educator “refrains from any form of sexual relationship with learners from any school”. It separately requires educators to refrain from courting learners from any school, from any form of sexual harassment of learners whether physical or otherwise, and from exposing or displaying pornographic material to learners.
None of those obligations depends on where the conduct happens. They apply on a school field, in a classroom and in a chat window.
| SACE enforcement | Figure |
|---|---|
| Ethical misconduct cases investigated, 2023/24 | 606 |
| Share involving assault | About 50% |
| Share involving sexual misconduct | About 18% |
| Share involving verbal abuse | About 18% |
| Disciplinary hearings concluded, 2024/25 | 134 |
| Educators sanctioned, 2024/25 | 109 |
| Educators struck from the roll, 2024/25 | 36 |
These figures are drawn from a NAPTOSA Western Cape guide citing the SACE Annual Report for 2023/24 and subsequent reporting. Southafriworld did not retrieve the annual report directly, and the published breakdown does not say how many of these cases involved WhatsApp or any other messaging platform.
Removal from the roll is the most severe sanction and ends a teaching career in South Africa. An educator may appeal a finding or a sanction within 14 days.
What children are not being told
The gap Bottoman identified is not in the rules. It is in whether children know the rules exist and what to do about them.
She said many children are not aware that they should report an incident if a teacher communicates with them inappropriately on WhatsApp, and that children confronted with a teacher making sexual advances often do not know what to do.
She also said all nine provincial education departments have taken part in online safety workshops intended to help learners and teachers identify risks so they can be reported.
That is the practical takeaway for a parent. A child who does not know that a message is reportable will not report it, and the department has now said so publicly.
Emma Sadleir, a social media law expert and founder of the Digital Law Company, has argued separately that smartphone use should be delayed until at least primary school, and has warned that South African children have civil capacity from the age of seven and can be arrested from 12. Her point concerns children’s own conduct online rather than teacher conduct, but it sits on the same platforms.
What has not been decided
Several things remain open, and they are the things a parent would need to know.
The department has not published a draft, has not said when guidelines will be issued, and has not indicated whether they will be enforceable or simply advisory. It has not said whether existing class WhatsApp groups would have to migrate to an official platform, or which platforms would qualify.
It has also not published any figure for how many teacher misconduct cases have involved messaging apps, which is the number that would show the scale of the problem the guidelines are meant to address.
Two things are settled in the meantime. The SACE Code already prohibits the conduct at issue regardless of platform, and complaints against a registered educator can be lodged with SACE, which has the power to investigate, hold a disciplinary hearing and strike an educator from the roll.
