Cape Town - Advocacy group Equal Education, which has for several weeks been calling for a response from education officials to a social audit of more than 200 schools, has met the provincial head of education to discuss it.
The meeting was held on Thursday and both parties have agreed to meet again to look at the measures that could be taken to address the issues the audit had identified.
In April, members of the group participated in a march and presented the findings of the audit, which included interviews with 912 pupils, to district officials.
According to the group, the findings included that: corporal punishment had occurred in 83 percent of schools, at one out of three schools there had been drug/alcohol use in the previous three months while one out of six schools had a gang presence in the previous three months.
The information was handed over to three district directors, and the demand from Equal Education was that each director consider the information presented to them and respond within two weeks with a clear plan on how they planned to address “the school safety crisis”.
But more than a month later, Equal Education’s Western Cape head, Nishal Robb, told the Cape Argus there had been no response from the department.
At the time, the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) spokesman Paddy Attwell said Equal Education had not yet submitted a consolidated report to the head of department, nor to the Safe Schools directorate.
Robb said if the department had needed more information it could have requested it.
At the end of last month, members of the group went to Education MEC Debbie Schäfer's house, after a decision to take her “directly to task for the lack of response from her officials to the audit findings”.
Schäfer accused Equal Education of grandstanding, and said that while she had requested the report, she had not received it.
She said the audit “comprised hundreds of loose papers consisting of hand written notes from learners”.
According to the department, provincial education head Penny Vinjevold had invited the group to present their findings and at Thursday’s meeting provided summaries that district officials had compiled of the survey forms provided by the organisation in April.
“The WCED welcomes the involvement of learners in identifying issues they wish to address in education. Our core mandate is to serve the best interests of learners and we look forward to working with all concerned to find constructive, well-informed solutions to these issues,” said Vinjevold.
She said the audit and the department had provided the group with details on how it dealt with corporal punishment while a briefing for Equal Education had been held by the Safe School directorate last year. “The WCED applies a rigorous approach to investigations of allegations of corporal punishment, while also providing schools with training and continuous support on discipline and positive behaviour programmes.”
She said parents and pupils were encouraged to report incidents of corporal punishment.
“The WCED and EE representatives agreed to share further information and will meet again to decide on what steps could be taken in the first three weeks of the third term to address issues identified by the audit in the short term.”
Robb said the meeting had been productive, adding that the department had shown a commitment to work with Equal Education on addressing the audit findings. He said one of the immediate issues that needed attention was the reporting systems that pupils had to use, especially in serious cases such as sexual assault and corporal punishment. Another issue was access control at schools, and he said this could help to curb vandalism and other problems many schools had to deal with.
Cape Argus