Cape Town – Teachers and pupils were back at school in Lavender Hill on Wednesday, having effectively silenced the guns of gangsters through their protests and pleas to government.
"The area is quiet today because there is greater police visibility, as promised," said a spokesperson for the Lavender Hill Schools Safety and Security Committee.
He declined to be named.
Not all the pupils had returned to school yet, he said, and teachers were being counselled by teams of psychologists deployed by the Western Cape Education Department (WCED).
Psychologist Clive Cairns from the Ottery Youth Care and Education Centre said the psychologists would first assist the teachers "to be safe in themselves" and then they would spend time in the classrooms with teachers and pupils to help them all feel safe and to settle down.
WCED spokesperson Millicent Merton confirmed that there was a "strong police presence in the community" and the department was developing a support plan to assist all the schools with catching up the lost lessons.
"The Grade 12 pupils will write their exams in June. Our Curriculum Component will give additional support to Lavender Hill High School," Merton said.
A long term solution to the problems facing the area would be sought at a meeting on Friday between Western Cape premier Helen Zille, Education MEC Debbie Schäfer, the police, ward councillors, WCED authorities, teachers and parents.
Police spokesperson FC Van Wyk said while the shooting usually flared up when pupils were going to, or leaving school, they were sporadic and didn't target pupils or teachers.
Van Wyk said as a result of consultation with SAPS, extra forces were deployed in the Steenberg precinct to safeguard the community, especially the teachers and pupils.
The South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO) national spokesman Jabu Mahlangu said "the reign of terror by gangsters is destroying the moral fibre of some of the communities" and these needed "to be freed from the cycle of violence and hopelessness".
"The partnership between police and communities must be strengthened to wrestle our youth from the destructive culture of gangsterism," he said.