Violence and Safety at Schools

Briefing Parliament about safety in schools, the Department of Basic Education said school violence is common and a reflection of social issues.

It distracts the Department from its core business of teaching and learning.

Accessibility to alcohol and drugs influences the levels of violence within schools. In most cases, matters relating to trauma, violence and security do not emerge from the schools but from learners’ backgrounds and the environment where the school is located. In some gang-ridden communities learners have to walk over bodies to get to schools and classrooms. In addition, the acquisition of new technology and equipment in schools has increased theft and vandalism.

There were many programmes put in place to address violence in schools. The DBE SAPS protocol linked schools to the local police station and created school safety audits that schools themselves could do in order to create their own school safety plan. Part of this initiative is that schools have to establish a School Safety Committee. This mobilises communities to take ownership of schools and implement school-based crime prevention programmes. About 23 000 schools are linked to their local police stations. Programmes jointly identified by SAPS and the DBE included substance abuse, safety awareness, teenage pregnancy, theft, vandalism, gender-based violence and sexual offences.

SAPS was able to close 15 100 illegal liquor outlets within a 500m proximity from schools in 2016, and, from April to September 2017, it had closed a further 5 120 outlets. Searches and seizures at identified hotspot schools are randomly done, to address the presence of drugs and weapons in schools.

Rates of bullying are extremely high but this is being dealt with. The focus is on physical, cyber and homophobic bullying. Training manuals on the prevention and management of these types of bullying have been developed and made available to schools. The DBE has developed an E-Safety Guideline to address cyber-bullying. “STOP, WALK AND TALK” is the slogan for the campaign which will be launched in February/March 2018, and will be rolled out in schools.

A guide to drug testing was developed and made available to schools. This area required increased cooperation between various arms of government, such as Education, Social Development, Health and Police. The provision of psycho-social support to affected learners, in partnership with the Department of Social Development, was being implemented.

Corporal punishment was still being practised in some schools. Learners were encouraged not to hit back at teachers when receiving corporal punishment, but instead report it.

MPs said the problem was still huge and, while there were strategies and programmes, the violence continued. They wondered if the strategies were inadequate or not effective. The DA said it was doing site visits, and the results were bad. For example, a teacher was not reported for alleged sexual assault or rape as the school had been more worried that a vacancy would occur. Some cases were so bad that children were offered money not to report them. Intervention was required to inform and educate parents not to take the money and “hush up” the cases, but to go and report them.
Another finding was that when the principal and teachers went on strike, some learners remained behind and sexual assaults took place. As a result, there should be a declaration that no learners should be on school premises without adult supervision.

Counselling and psycho-social support was particularly critical for learners, as they were exposed to things which could emotionally traumatise them, and this was lacking. The DBE should have developed peer counselling and included it in the development. Although the DBE did not have sufficient resources at schools, it could always have a peer counselling system if no counsellor was available for the school.