Hannah Omarjee | homarjee@radioislam.co.za
15 February 2023 | 10:00 PM CAT

Photo Credit: PSA

Teacher unions are expressing concern over the safety of both teachers and learners as schools nationwide become battlefields. The unions said there had been an alarming rise in violent attacks on teachers and learners. Last year crime stats indicated that 19 murders were committed at educational facilities across the country.

The Public Servants Association of South Africa’s (PSA) acting assistant general manager, Claude Naicker, said many incidents of school violence go unreported unless broadcasted on social media. Naicker said, “Those ones that are normally captured via cell phone video footage or somebody does capture it in some other method, and it reaches the media, then obviously the spotlight focuses on it.”

School violence has been an issue for quite some time. Investigations into what causes school violence will not be able to pinpoint one particular reason for it.

Claude believes that one of the main reasons that allow such incidents to occur is the infrastructure of schools, as they do not provide adequate protection to teachers and students from outside threats. Most schools are open and allow criminals to enter the premises easily. Another issue is that learners enter the school premises with knives and other weapons because of how easy it is for them to get them through the gate, which they then utilise against teachers or other students.

The PSA feels that increasing school security can prevent some of these issues. Most government schools have two security guards as they cannot afford more personnel, and those that can afford private security generally hire them at night to patrol the premises. Naicker says, “During the day, you have security that is perhaps the lowest paid security for their services, that is the one, and the other instances you have just one government security official that is on the premises, for him to handle the entire school becomes practically impossible.”

The PSA advocates for increasing security on the school premises as this can eradicate or minimise some problems.

Listen to the full interview with Ml Sulaimaan Ravat on Sabahul Muslim.