An angry classroom outburst by a Port Elizabeth art teacher has attracted a worldwide audience after a secret cellphone video recording of his profanity-laden remarks was posted on the internet.

Swearing in the classroom

The video, posted on YouTube, had almost 20 000 hits and was also apparently exchanged via cellphone by dozens of Grey High School boys and their friends.

In the clip, Jeremy Baylis tells his Grade 12 pupils they are "rude f***ing animals", "bloody bastards" with a "f***ing lack of manners" and "the rudest pigs I've ever come across".

He then storms out the classroom in a rage, slamming the door behind him. The clip, recorded by a pupil in Baylis's class late last year, was posted on YouTube in January but was removed from the site this week .

The clip begins with Baylis calmly teaching, while loud yawns and muffled remarks like "oh crap" can be heard in the background. Then, suddenly, Baylis slams a chair down on his table and begins swearing at his class.

"Can you Bluetooth that to me?"

He yells: "If you want to tell your parents, get them on the phone to me. You're bloody rubbish." The f-word is screamed out by Baylis five times during the almost two-minute tirade before he storms out of the classroom. At the end of the clip a pupil is heard asking "Can you Bluetooth that to me?"

Baylis refused to comment this week, but Grey High School rector Neil Crawford said that while he didn't condone Baylis's comments or actions, the pupils had deliberately provoked the teacher.

"It was a set-up by the pupils. Why else would they have the cellphone filming right at the time?"

Crawford said Baylis had come to him "in a state" afterwards. He had been "dealt with internally", while two Grade 12 pupils who had been responsible for the filming of the clip were disciplined.

The boys, who matriculated last year, could not be reached for comment this week.

Crawford added that cellphone use was banned at the school.

This artice first appeared in the Saturday Star.