Curro to probe controversial career day post depicting racial stereotypes

Curro Holdings, South Africa’s largest private school group, has promised to investigate a controversial career day post depicting racial stereotypes which caused a stir on social media at the weekend.

Curro was lambasted after pictures of a primary school pupils' career day event showed a black child posed as a cashier while white children posed as veterinarians, among other professions. Curro apologised on Sunday, acknowledging the picture was initially posted by the company on social media but was deleted after backlash. 

“Curro Holdings acknowledges that a post we published on social media portraying children in various workplace contexts was offensive due to the inappropriate stereotypes it depicted. The post was in error and has been deleted,” Curro said.

The company promised to investigate as questions arose about whether the child chose to pose as a cashier or Curro officials made the decision.

“We apologise for the offence caused and are urgently [engaging] our internal processes to understand fully the circumstances of the post to ensure that such an error is not repeated in the future.”

Curro was labelled as “racist” by some people, but the company said it remained committed to diversity and nonracialism in its schools.

Social media user Nicole Gentry-Brand, reacting to the apology, said: “I saw the original post on TikTok since it’s been removed and am wondering if there is more context to this. Did the little girl want to play that role? Were the children taking turns? I hope she wasn’t put into the role of a cashier by adults who think in a discriminatory way.

“Fortunately for children, they play and have fun and don’t always understand the implications of this the way adults do. I hope that little girl gets an apology if this was done with ill intent.”

Here’s some reactions from social media: 

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