Staff Reporter
The department of basic education is calling for a symposium with police and other government departments to discuss how to tackle challenges at schools.
This was announced by minister Angie Motshekga in Pretoria on Monday.
The announcement follows a meeting the minister held with the Council of Education Ministers.
“We are deeply concerned by the incidents taking place at our schools. We need to continue to work with communties and law-enforcement organisations to ensure that we arrest this type of behaviour.
An Eastern Cape pupil was stabbed to death over a cellphone last week.
A 17-year old pupil allegedly stabbed his teacher to death at a school in Zeerust in full view of learners who were writing an exam.
It is alleged that the teacher had reprimanded the pupil the day before the fatal attack.
In Gauteng, a 15-year-old boy from an Eldorado Park secondary school appeared in court on Friday after he pointed a gun at his teacher.
This is why Motshekga has called for a symposium with police and other government departments.
About 18 000 schools have been paired with police stations as part of a protocol between the SAPS and education,” Motshekga said.
She also briefed the meeting that the department was ready for senior certificate exams, noting that the department is expecting a cohort of 787 281 pupils to sit for this year’s exams at 8 000 examination centres.
Motshekga said some of the faced by pupils problems were more social and this is why she wants different stakeholders and teacher unions to meet for a colloquium and discuss how to deal with the spate of violence.
“In terms of readiness, we have been closely tracking each of the nine provinces so that we can pick up challenges in areas such as curriculum coverage in time to intervene,” said Motshekga.
The only solution to educational problems is to address parental issue, were parent take responsibility of teaching morals to their children, the state makes sure who and when to have children because most of the parents are young and with no education some are not married thus they do not have any idea about bringing up children. This situation tells one that parent education about family matters is highly important. On the other hand poverty rocks the boat.All good principles learnt in the past need not be forgotten.