Education department calls in cavalry to deal with school violence. But is it too late?

The murder of a teacher, on school premises, proves that the education department’s School Safety Summit on Friday came too late.

So said Matakanya Matakanye, general-secretary of the National Association of School Governing Bodies, who spoke to TimesLIVE on the sidelines of the summit.

The summit brought together education stakeholders to find solutions to safety issues facing schools, a month after a teacher in the North West was stabbed to death by a pupil.

“We’ve been calling for such a summit for a while now; it’s just unfortunate that a teacher in the North West had to die first before all stakeholders involved in ensuring that schools are safer met,” Matakanye said. Violence in schools was nothing new – and the North West was the hardest hit, he said. But despite his concerns he was satisfied with how the summit went.

“What I love is that all the stakeholders involved are here. The department of basic education managed to bring along supporting ministers and departments. It’s amazing to see all the relevant ministers here. It means this will not just be a talk shop but we will see definite action,” Matakanye said.

The inclusion and attendance of faith-based organisations and parents was seen as a progressive step towards addressing violence in schools.

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga appealed to communities to take responsibility for instilling a sense of right and wrong in their children.

“We need parents, communities, and civil society organisations to play their part in resolving this nightmare. As parents, we need to teach our children that there are other ways of resolving conflicts. We need to drive the point home that life is a precious commodity, and it can’t be wantonly taken away. Our Constitution reinforces the sanctity of life,” she said.

Matakanye said discipline had to begin at home.

“Our schools need to be sacred, like churches. This is a call to action for everyone to play their part. It’s not time to play the blame game but, also, we need to see action. Enough has been said,” said Matakanye.

Proper financial support would address some of the challenges related to school violence, he said. If NGOs and governing bodies received further financial support from the government they would be able to get the right resources to address the challenge.

“We still have schools, especially in rural provinces, where they still don’t have [security] guards on school premises. People walk in and out of the school as they please, without accounting to anyone why they are there,” Matakanye said.

SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) general-secretary Mugwena Maluleke said that various stakeholders worked in silos, which it made it difficult to address violence in schools.

“Violence is a very complex problem that needs to be addressed by all stakeholders, as we see today,” he said at Friday’s summit.

“What we had in the past is that different departments, and even units within the education sector, had programmes that never spoke to each other but were trying to address the same issue. Blaming each other has also been a hindrance to addressing violence in our schools,” said Maluleke.

He said rural schools were still struggling to get the basics right due to lack of funds. Unlike schools in the Western Cape and Gauteng, most schools in rural provinces didn’t have guards and were sometimes not fenced.

He proposed for the summit to be taken down to the provincial level. “We need to have a similar summit in provinces, where people who will have to implement strategies discussed here will be directly involved.”

Grade 11 pupil Mongale Lobeko, 16, from Emang Mmogo High School in Kimberley, was skeptical that what was discussed would be implemented. He said he was part of a similar summit in 2015 and none of the interventions proposed then became a reality.

He said the growing violence in schools made him fear for his safety. The recent Constitutional Court ruling that legalised the private use of dagga was not making things any easier.

“Learners are now bringing dagga to schools and say it is legal for private use. They smoke it openly in toilets and we are afraid to report them because most of them are dangerous,” Lobeko said. 

Periodic police raids on schools don’t seem to help much. Another pupil from Kimberley, Sthembiso Kavula, who is in Grade 11 at Tetlanyo High School, said police rarely find anything on pupils.

“Even those that we know have dagga or sometimes carry knives, during raids police never find anything on them. It’s like those learners somehow receive a tip-off from someone before police come,” he said.

Although she agreed to occasional police raids, Motshekga said she didn’t want unannounced visits to schools because she didn’t want schools to become police states.

“Our primary business is teaching and learning and if police want to conduct searches, prior arrangements need to be made. They can’t raid schools as if they are raiding taxi ranks. No,” Motshekga said.

The minister continued: “The other thing is that the violent ones are usually a handful and we don’t want to contaminate the whole [schooling] space.”

On the use of technology such as metal detectors being implemented in schools, the minister said she was not opposed to it. However, she said technology on its own would not address the problem.