Time to do your bit
LEVELS of lawlessness in our schools are worrying and it looks like authorities aren’t winning at weeding out the violence. If pupils aren’t beating love rivals up, it’s the teachers who are mercilessly beating them up despite corporal punishment having been abolished years ago. If pupils aren’t stabbing each other to death they are shooting each other.
Just last week, in a school fight among a group of boys in Lenasia that split into the streets, one pupil pulled out a gun and shot his rival three times.
The incident left the victim hospitalised and having to undergo an operation on his leg. This just a few weeks after two boys were expelled and 10 girls suspended from the Norkem Park High School in Kempton Park after violence broke out over relationship issues between pupils.
Also last week, at Klipspruit West Secondary School, pupils were caught on camera loitering around the school premises, gambling and using drugs during school hours. When incidents such as these happen, education officials are always quick to spring to action, visiting the schools affected to try to get to the bottom of the matter. With the Norkem Park incident, they resolved to get police involved to conduct random searches.
Reality is that there’s only so much that police can do as far as violence in schools are concerned. With levels of crime in our country, they cannot be at every school at all times. Teachers too, aren’t equipped to deal with violent pupils.
A question we should perhaps be asking is where parents and guardians of these children are and what they are doing to help resolve these issues.
Yes, most cannot afford to take time off work to run to their children’s schools each time there’s an incident but a good start would be to attend parents’ meetings, engage with teachers and keep track of their children’s behaviour in school.
The blame cannot be squarely laid on education officials and police. It’s about time parents got involved. If you can’t take time off, call the teacher. That is the very least you can do.