Are we a cursed nation or just an angry people? If it's anger driving us, since when then has violent crime become the solution to any problem?

Why has committing a crime in SA become so easy and fashionable? I grew up knowing that schools are supposed to be a safe place for pupils and where teachers become parents to learners.

What has happened to those days, and to those values?

The level of violent crime in SA is high, especially in black schools. The majority of bad things are associated with black people. We cannot blame apartheid for each and every bad thing that black people do.

Black people do horrible things to each other.

While we continue to eliminate each other, other nations are laughing at us as they prosper.

The youth of this country will remain hopeless unless all role players' hands are on deck, ready to confront this scourge of school violence head on.

Let's bring back the values that used to work in the past such as the Lord's prayer, inter-school sports, daily police visibility at schools, school debates and inspectors to visit schools unannounced.

We need education unions and youth organisation to dedicate a programme aimed at visiting schools to motivate pupils about crime, drugs, HIV, self-respect, the youth of '76, and parents must know their children.

As parents, we really need to start to pay attention to the behaviour of our children and engage them on their school work and observe the kind of friends they keep.

It is very sad to see your child going to school in the morning and later as a parent you receive the sad news that your child was killed at school.

It is equally sad that teachers are harassed and killed by learners or other young criminals in the community, who enter school premises armed to the teeth.

The security schools must be very tight and each school must have CCTV cameras from now on moving forward.

Mthetheleli Mandla, Krugersdorp