Tensions were running high at Geluksdal Secondary School in Brakpan Gauteng on Monday when parents demanded that their children be allowed to leave out of fear for their safety.
This comes amid a Grade 10 learner being stabbed to death outside of the high school in an after-school fight last Thursday.
Last week, a video also circulated of an incident at a Krugersdorp school, showing a grade 10 learner being assaulted by her classmate.
Learners at the Brakpan higher school have expressed frustration at the lack of assistance from teachers in resolving bullying and violence at their school.
One learner voiced the following:
“We are surrounded by danger as learners and when we come to report to teachers…we are not heard.”
Executive director of the teachers' organisation, Naptosa Basil Manuel, says the union is concerned about the dire state of security at schools as well as the safety of school infrastructure.
He continues, “Added to that is the respect for the school itself, when people take their fights to a school it shows a blatant disrespect there and now look what has happened, we have seen the life of a child lost.”
Manuel says that the root causes of school violence need to be identified and addressed permanently.
“We’ve [NAPTOSA] been in discussion with the department over a number of years about improving the physical security at schools, schools must be fenced and must have a system in place where there is a vetting process of anybody that comes in the school," said Manuel.
Meanwhile, Kagiso Secondary School learners had to be sent home on Friday following a shooting incident at the school, noted the Gauteng Education Department.
It is claimed that a man gained access into the school through the main gate when it was opened for a car to drive in.
He then allegedly drew a knife and stabbed a teacher in the hand, prompting another teacher to allegedly fatally shoot the man.
The department has raised concern over the string of violent attacks and has since committed to intensifying security and says it will send psychologists to the two schools marred by violence in the East and West Rand.
