Durban- The South African Democratic Teachers Union has shut down arguments that teachers should come to schools armed with guns.
At a media briefing on Wednesday, Nomarashiya Caluza, the union’s KwaZulu-Natal provincial chair, said they had discussed school security at a provincial general council that was held last week. “We do not have military schools and we are not in America,” he said.
Caluza said the council noted that violence in schools had an impact on working conditions and that there was evidence to suggest that this had an impact on educational outcomes.
Durban has had numerous incidents of violence at schools over the past few years.
Most recently there was a murder of a teacher at Masuku Primary School in the Folweni area last month.
Two days after the teacher was shot, two security guards were attacked at Folweni Secondary School with one of the guards dying later on.
Sadtu slams idea of teachers carrying guns at school. Video by Mphathi Nxumalo
“It is our strongly considered view that school violence should be seen as a national crisis that it is and that there must be adequate resourcing to facilitate the implementation of the National Schools Safety Framework that has been developed almost a decade ago from an infrastructure and personnel point of view,” she said.
Caluza said that she wished police would focus on what happened in the Folweni area as there seemed to be a number of violent incidents in the area.