Community Safety MEC to get to the bottom of bullying at schools

Community Safety MEC Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane on Friday said her department will investigate why Noorderlig Gekombineerde High School had not taken action against the learners who reportedly bullied a Grade 7 learner who has since died.

"We will investigate what happened and will make public our findings. What we want to find out is: why did it take so long for the school to act against those were bullying the children?" Nkosi-Malobane said on Friday during her visit to the school in Benoni.

A 13-year-old boy died on Tuesday after suffering injuries allegedly related to bullying at the school.

Nkosi-Malobane said once post-mortem results were made available‚ the police would decide on the charge to be levelled against the learners involved.

"The case formerly was opened yesterday [Thursday]. We will be getting postmortem results on Tuesday. Up until we get the results we will be able to indicate what type of case we are dealing with."

Nkosi-Malobane said her department had been planning to visit the East Rand as part of an anti-bullying campaign titled Speak Out.

According Nkosi-Malobane‚ research in schools around Johannesburg shows that the Vaal has the highest number of incidents of bullying‚ followed by the East Rand.

"When we visited the Vaal‚ some children came forward and told us they have been bullied. They also pointed out the kids who are bullying others‚" she said.

"We have referred the children to programmes that will assist in dealing with anger and other issues."

Nkosi-Malobane appealed to parents and teachers to act immediately when a child reports bullying at home.

"We need to act immediately against bullying and make sure we act before something like this happens."