Children are the future of every nation, and no one can be faulted for doing everything in their power to guarantee their safety and security, especially in schools, which have custody of them for most of the day.
Yet the schools are situated in our communities and are as such not immune to the bad and ugly that often spill onto school grounds.
Today, elsewhere in this publication, we tell the tale of violence that has been allowed to become the staple of almost every community in this country encroaching into schools, necessitating that school authorities seek ways to enhance security.
The story we are telling relates to the commonplace of incidents of violence such as fights among pupils, and in some instances among staff, lending to the
disorder and chaos that characterises some schools, invariably almost always where black African children learn.
We are also reporting of an incident in Eastern Cape, where the principal of a school at KwaBhaca was shot dead on school premises last week. Untold damage is done to the psyche of both staff and pupils who now have to teach and learn in an environment far from conducive.
Thus, school officials are now forced to spend resources that could have been otherwise spent on improving school infrastructure and advancing schools in other constructive ways.
The Eastern Cape education department has announced to the province’s heads of education department committee, which met last month, that is has allocated R60-million for security at schools in hotspot areas.
In the meantime, 262 security personnel have been deployed in 131 schools across Nelson Mandela Bay, Buffalo and OR Tambo Inland school districts.
The situation is no different in areas similarly regarded as hotspots elsewhere in the country.
Gauteng makes the headlines often, with incidents such as the torching of a school in Eldorado Park, south of Johannesburg, allegedly by pupils recently. Shooting and stabbings are also par for the course in the province, resulting in authorities deploying 300 armed private security guards to ensure safety and security on school premises in 75 hotspots.
Sizwe High School in Ennerdale, also south of the city, is regarded as problematic, having gained notoriety a few years ago when a grade 11 pupil stabbed a grade 9 schoolmate. Today it is guarded around the clock by armed guards.
In other schools, management have naturally resorted to the obviously stretched SA Police Service, which in some instances posts reservists to give a semblance, however paper-thin, of enhanced security.
All this comes at costs that no doubt leave schools gasping for air while spending money that could have been spent wisely elsewhere to improve the learning environment for our children.
We hope authorities higher up in government are taking stock and are working on plans to improve the situation.
We owe our children and the future of this country that much.
We dare not fail.
