FROM pupils being stabbed to confiscating pangas, knives and dangerous weapons, sheer grit gets School Resource Officers on the Cape Flats through the day.
It’s been ten years since the pilot project between the Western Cape Education Department and the City of Cape Town’s law enforcement officers was launched with the aim of providing added security to troubled metro schools.
The project began in 2012 with six schools, and now reaches 13, patrolled by 36 officers who operate at schools in Bonteheuwel, Delft, Mitchells Plain and Lavender Hill/Capricorn areas.
An inspector in the Delft Cluster who is stationed at Voorbrug Secondary, Darrel Smith, said building relationships with the schools and pupils was a big challenge.
He said a stabbing at one of the schools he works at revealed how issues in the community often spill over onto the school grounds.
“The worst case was one stabbing at the school in 2018. We informed law enforcement officers on the streets, and then we managed to get hold of the boy. He was expelled and now we have everything secured and nothing has happened since. Now there is a lot of respect in the school,” he said.
Smith said all schools should have an officer deployed as they could help handle any situations, including crime incidents.
“The programme is 100% important; the visibility and presence of (officers) is needed in every school,” he said.
Theresa Elie, who began patrols in Westbank four years ago, said dealing with misbehaving pupils was a challenge, one she learnt to overcome to build relationships with pupils. She said trust had to be established to get pupils to tell them about weapons and drugs at school.
Even though officers were assigned to specific schools in the beginning, currently officers operate on a rotational basis in areas identified by the WCED.
Anika Valentine, who was previously deployed to Hanover Park in 2020 and now works at a primary school in Lavender Hill, said the rotation made it difficult to connect with and teach pupils bout substance abuse and crime.
Mayco member for Safety and Security JP Smith said the project has yielded some results. “Between January 2021 and March officers confiscated 194 dagga joints, 66 bankies of dagga; more than 400 cigarettes and 58 weapons, including 46 knives, and broke up seven fights after school,” said Smith.
Education activist and the chairperson of Progressive Organisation Formation Brian Isaacs said parents, teachers and pupils needed to be involved in the programme to help prevent drugs and weapons at schools.
ANC spokesperson for education in the Legislature Khalid Sayed welcomed the steps taken to rid schools of drugs and weapons, but called for more actions to ensure safety at schools. “The department of education, law enforcement and community safety need to do much more to keep our schools safe. We question how did these substances get inside the school in the first place. It points us to the problem but not the successes of the program. It points to a failure of the provincial government to keep our schools safe,” he said. “We want the new MEC of community safety to work together with the department of education to make sure that our schools are safe spaces. The programme is only running in 13 schools and that is a complete joke.”
Smith said budget constraints limited a further roll out of the project.
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