Deadly situation at schools
SOMETHING eerie is going on in our primary and high schools and we ought to be gravely concerned.
Our children’s schools have become slaughterhouses and war zones.
The continuous pupil-on-pupil violence has reached unbearable proportions that need urgent intervention, not only by the government, but by civil society as well.
If there is ever a time that necessitates for churches to pray hard and for role models and mentors to lend a helping hand, it is now as reports emerge of pupils being killed on school premises daily.
When s 16-year-old pupil, Owam Bam from Shawury Secondary School in Qumbu in the Eastern Cape, was stabbed to death by a pupil in August during a lesson, or when Joburg Forest High School pupil Daniel Bakwela was stabbed to death in June by schoolmates, their murders should have been sufficient for us to stand up and say enough.
The death of 14-year-old pupil Tshepo Mphehlo from Thuto Tiro Comprehensive School in Sebokeng, who was killed with a pair of scissors during school hours on October 7, and on the same day the murder of Khuselo Ndanda, a pupil from Hillcrest Secondary School in Mossel Bay in full view of pupils and teachers, should have left us asking how many more?
And now that a mother had to watch her son, a Grade 11 pupil at Eastwood Secondary School in Pietermaritzburg, take his last breath on Tuesday after he was stabbed by fellow pupils, are we still prepared to have the “aargh poor shame” mentality?
In 2008, the Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention introduced the Hlayiseka Project, saying that while there was no “quick fix” solution to dealing with school violence, simple actions such as the community noting down safety spots was essential as it provided the school with information on where pupils felt vulnerable the most and where possible hot spots in and around schools were located.
When the Department of Education came up with the concept of the National School Safety Framework, it said the intention was not to present a “radical” new approach to school violence prevention.
But Minister Angie Motshekga and her team need to understand that radicalism is needed now more than ever. Our children are dying. ADDIS ABABA: Four hundred Ethiopians who were jailed in Saudi Arabia have returned home after Ethiopia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry secured the release of 1 400 nationals imprisoned following talks between the two countries.
The ministry said 32 890 Ethiopians who had been jailed in different countries had returned in the past three months. Thousands of Ethiopians migrate to the Gulf and southern Africa is search of economic opportunities, with many of them arrested for illegally entering their destinations. – African News Agency (ANA)