Cape Town - Violence at schools is causing teachers to leave their jobs before their careers are over.
This is according to the spokesperson for the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union, Nomusa Cembi, who said the disciplinary measures taken against pupils at present left teachers feeling vulnerable.
Recently a teacher in North West province was stabbed to death by a pupil. And in Gauteng a pupil was arrested for pointing a gun at a teacher.
Cembi said pupils’ right to be educated overshadowed laws aimed at protecting teachers.“A teacher can go to a police station to report a learner’s threat, but at the end of the day the suspended learner comes back to the school and the teacher has to stomach that, so... teachers leave (their jobs),” she said.
Cembi said instilling discipline in pupils at schools was problematic because when teachers asked parents to visit schools to address their children’s behavioural problems, parents either did not show up or passed on the responsibility of addressing their children’s behaviour to the schools.
Zahraa McDonald, a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for International Teacher Education at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology said school violence was a major concern for the government, the teaching profession and society. Despite numerous policies and strategies aimed at reducing incidents of violence at schools, schools were not able to deal effectively with violence displayed by pupils.
McDonald said an authoritarian culture in elements of society helped to foster violence among pupils. Western Cape Education Department spokesperson Bronagh Hammond said the department was aware of the disciplinary challenges teachers faced but said it was unaware of teachers resigning because of violence by pupils at schools.“We have received two cases (where pupils were) recommended for expulsion for assaulting... educators, this year. In both instances, the learners were expelled.”
Many times it had been mentioned that teachers were unsure of how to discipline pupils, and although there were many recommended ways to deal with discipline, the establishment of “intervention centres” could be on the cards.