Durban - The violence at a high school which resulted in two pupils being fatally stabbed, was “a ticking time bomb waiting to explode”, said grieving parents.
In February, the Department of Education dismissed 17 teachers at the school for allegedly selling marijuana to pupils.
Parents of pupils at Masakhaneni High School in KwaMakhutha claimed these teachers were allegedly replaced by under-qualified teachers who “had no skills to work with children and who further perpetrated ill-discipline at the school”.
Grade 10 pupil Mangaliso Mbatha, 18, and Sihle Mngadi, 20, in Grade 11, were fatally stabbed on Monday.
Their families told the Daily News this was bound to happen as violent incidents continued to plague the school. They said it had turned the school into a war zone between two groups of boys from KwaMakhutha and KwaMthiyane since the start of the year.
Mngadi and Mbatha were stabbed when they apparently tried to separate pupils fighting over a cellphone. The dispute started last Friday when another pupil was apparently hit in the face with a bush knife.
Pupils were sent home early yesterday as department officials, community leaders and parents visited the school.
Mngadi’s mother, Silindile, said she had no choice but to send her son to this high school because it was the only one in the area.
She said changing schools was not an option because she was unemployed, and she was also unhappy with its level of discipline and standard of education.
Mngadi’s grandmother, Isabel, said they were troubled as his two younger siblings still attended the school.
She said Sihle’s sister was slapped on Monday before he was stabbed, because she was from KwaMthiyane.
“She was lucky that she got away with only a slap. We are going to bury Sihle and then what? His younger siblings will have to go back to the same school, the same thing could happen to them,” she said.
Isabel blamed the lack of discipline at the school, saying it had made the school “vulnerable to crime and outside forces”.
“I do not want my grandson’s death to be in vain. I hope it will be a wake-up call to Education officials and the police to take the safety issues at the school seriously,” she said.
A few blocks from the school, Mbatha’s family were struggling to come to terms with his death.
His aunt, Nomusa Zulu, said the family regretted keeping him at the troubled school.
“We are gravely concerned about what is happening. When we heard that 17 teachers were removed, we thought things were going to get better, but they got worse,” said Zulu.
Parents told the Daily News they were not sending their children to school until security was beefed up.
Bheki Shandu, Sadtu provincial deputy secretary, said the teachers’ union called for the department to close the school until this was done.
“We were at the school three weeks ago. We warned about violence and littering around the school as well as outsiders roaming the school. This incident could have been avoided if our warning was urgently heeded,”said Shandu.
The Daily News reported earlier this month that Sicelo Khuzwayo, the department’s spokesperson, had said they were aware of the situation, referring to the dismissed teachers, and added the department had formed a task team to deal with the matter urgently.