SOWETAN | Bring back sanity to classrooms

The disturbing video of a classroom fight between a pupil and a teacher at Glenvista High School in Johannesburg reflects a worsening situation of violence in our schools.

In this incident, a pupil could be seen throwing punches at a teacher while the teacher also physically assaulted the learner multiple times before being pushed to the ground by another pupil. The situation escalated with the teacher throwing a chair at the learner while another pupil also threw a table at him.

This incident has once again underscored the extent of the problem of violence facing our education.

The Gauteng department of education has said it is investigating the incident and that decisive steps would be taken on the findings. Our schools are meant to be safe and nurturing environments where pupils have an opportunity to learn, and teachers guide them through the learning process.

But on the evidence of this incident and others, our schools are turning into battlegrounds of violence by both pupils and teachers. This should send a clear message to society and the department that more drastic steps need to be taken to end this problem.

There can be no justification, whatever the source of the conflict was, for a teacher to assault a learner and for a pupil to attack a teacher.

While calls have been made before for new approach to curb violent behaviours in schools, these have not resulted in any meaningful change judging by the ongoing incidents.

There have been attempts before to launch campaigns targeted at rooting out violence in schools, but these seemingly fizzled out once the dust has settled on one case.

The reality is that many such incidents go unreported, perhaps because no one bothered to take a video and share on social media.  There are also obvious warning signs about violence such as learner and teacher misbehaviour which is often not dealt with properly.

Acting on such misbehaviour before things implode could potentially curb the levels of violence that we are seeing.  While we welcome the Gauteng department of education’s investigation, to combat this problem effectively, we must stop treating such incidents as separate issues.

What happens in our schools is indicative of broader problems of violence in our society that must be addressed.