SOWETAN SAYS | We must end school violence

When parents send their children to school, they expect nothing but a sense of security and a good environment for learning.

This, however, is becoming a distant reality with ever-increasing cases of violence on school grounds. At the weekend, the Gauteng education department held an imbizo on school safety in Ekurhuleni after identifying 55 high-risk schools out of 700 schools in the region.

A community policing forum member told MEC Matome Chiloane that while school safety concentrated on pupils, some teachers were also a bad influence as they assisted pupils in concealing drugs and weapons during searches.

“In a classroom, the children would be using windows [to throw things out] while the teacher is present, and they don’t even care to notify the officers that are searching. If it were up to me, I would say the search should not only be done on children but teachers too. Teachers are not searched and that encourages them to hide stuff,” the CPF member said.

One of the cases highlighted during the meeting was of a pupil who faced five cases of assaulting other pupils. An expulsion request was sent to the department but while waiting for approval, the pupil continued to assault another two pupils. The meeting also heard that gangsterism plays a big role in school violence as pupils join opposing gangs that are embroiled in clashes.

The true extent of this crisis is going on right under our noses and there is growing fear that these acts may be more common than we expect. Acting swiftly on warnings that are evident such as bullying in the playgrounds could potentially curb this problem and lead to schools that are free of violence.

Increased policing and searches at schools as suggested by speakers at the imbizo is always welcome. But we must also consistently evaluate the effectiveness of these measures as more violent incidents are reported.

That so many schools in Gauteng are identified as high risk because of incidents of violence and bad behaviour by pupils suggests we need to change our approach to dealing with the problem. Parents must be involved in every solution sought to deal with this as part of proactive measures to end the problem.

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