Cape Town - Although corporal punishment is banned in schools, four in five pupils who took part in a recent audit of 244 Western Cape schools reported that teachers used sticks, batons and other objects to beat them.
It also emerged that more than half of the schools have had a robbery in the past year.
The audit was conducted by advocacy group Equal Education, and scores of its members participated in a march on Tuesday to demand safer schools “in black working class communities.”
The march followed just days after Arcadia Secondary School in Bonteheuwel was burgled and badly vandalised.
Five classrooms were broken into and copper piping and taps stolen, resulting in a large area of the school being flooded.
According to Education MEC Debbie Schäfer, the estimated cost of repair work was R1 million.
Equal Education’s Western Cape head, Nishal Robb, said the social audit, which had been launched in August, showed that corporal punishment was taking place in 83 percent of the schools.
“Nine out of 10 schools reported incidents of violence.”
Other findings included:
- At one out of three schools there had been drug or alcohol use in the last three months.
- One out six schools had a gang presence in the last three months.
- At one out of four schools there had been a case of vandalism in the past year.
- At one out of nine schools there had been a stabbing incident in the last year.
- A case of rape had been reported in the last year at 3 percent of the schools.
- Less than half of the schools (47 percent) had a full-time security guard.
- Fifty-four percent of the schools with security guards indicated their guards had been trained.
- While 98 percent of the schools had a fence, 42 percent of the schools said the fence had holes.
More than 900 pupils were interviewed for the audit, and Equal Education said it had worked in partnership with organisations and community members across the Western Cape.
Initially the plan was to have four separate marches to four different education district offices but, after learning that district officials were at the Cape Teaching and Leadership Institute in Kuils River, the marchers made their way there.
Their demand was that each district director considers the information presented to them (on the findings) and respond within two weeks with a clear plan on how they plan to address “the school safetycrisis”.
Schäfer’s spokeswoman, Jessica Shelver, said the MEC had not had the opportunity to study the findings of the audit, nor had Equal Education sent correspondence of this nature to her office.
“The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) is always concerned about any violence affecting our learners - be it inside the school premises or outside.
“The reality is that in the Western Cape, unlike other provinces, we are faced with the scourge of gangsterism which is plaguing some of our communities. Unfortunately in communities where gangsterism is prominent, it can sometimes spill into our schools.”
She said that because of the security measures the department had put in place in schools, schools were often places of refuge when gang violence was taking place in a community.
“The WCED does all it can to protect our learners and our schools.
“But ultimately, it is also the responsibility of the police and communities to ensure the safety of our learners, by preventing gangsterism in these areas.”
She said the department, in partnership with the city council, had deployed School Resource Officers to schools that had been identified as high risk.
They provide law enforcement services, including access control, search and seizure as well as patrols.
She said the department was concerned that corporal punishment still existed in the province’s schools.
“Statistics SA survey data suggests that between 2009 and 2012 the incidence of corporal punishment increased significantly in certain provinces such as the Eastern Cape (from 25.2 percent to 30.3 percent) and in Mpumalanga (from 8 percent to11.5 percent).
“The data also suggest that in the Eastern Cape (30.3 percent), KwaZulu-Natal (21.4 percent) and the Free State (18.4 percent) the practice is rife, whereas in the Western Cape (4.5 percent) and Gauteng (4.6 percent) the incidence is low.
“The Western Cape has the lowest percentage in South Africa.”
Cape Argus