By Matt Medved
Primary schools make up a third of 109 "high-risk" schools in and around the city, as the youngest group of pupils suffer gangsterism, drug-dealing and violence, a report given exclusively to the Cape Argus reveals.
Gang activity and drug-dealing on school grounds have prompted the provincial government to deploy several hundred police reservists and crime-fighting volunteers to the 109 schools most at risk.
And on Monday Education MEC Cameron Dugmore called on schools to take a "zero-tolerance" approach to all forms of abuse, including bullying, to prevent it from spiralling into worse violence.
'The volunteers are purely there as the eyes and the ears of the police' In the report the province pinpoints schools that are "violence and drug-peddling hotspots".
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Of these, 34 are primary schools.
Khayelitsha, Mitchell's Plain and Manenberg had the largest number of targeted schools, with Bonteheuwel, Delft, Eerste River, Gugulethu and Athlone on the second tier.
The revelations follow the latest school killing, in which Mogammat Sukarie Kannemeyer, a 17-year-old Grade 9 pupil at Eerste River High, was stabbed to death with scissors on Monday. A 17-year-old pupil has been arrested.
At another school on the list, Princeton High in Mitchell's Plain, a new principal has been drafted in to tackle its epidemic of drugs and violence.
A total of 149 SAPS police reservists and 500 Bambanani volunteers have been deployed to the high-risk schools by Premier Ebrahim Rasool as part of his R1 billion anti-crime initiative.
Although department of education officials were reluctant to have the names of the schools released, the Cape Argus obtained a list of all 109 and the number of reservists and Bambanani volunteers to be deployed to each.
Safe Schools Project head Narriman Khan said 69 of the schools had received one reservist each, while two reservists had been deployed to the 40 schools most at risk.
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