GroundUp reports that hundreds of residents, teachers and pupils marched to the Khayelitsha Magistrate's Court on Thursday to hand over a memorandum demanding measures to make their schools safer.  

The protest, organised by the Khayelitsha Education Forum (KEF), called for the Western Cape Department of Education to install metal detectors at all schools and hire security guards 365 days a year.  The KEF also called on the department to start a walking bus in which pupils, under the supervision of an adult, walked in groups to and from school.  The protesters furthermore called for proper fencing.  The memo went on to demand an "end to gangsterism and drug abuse at schools" as well as an investigation into all such reported cases.  KEF chairperson Nowawethu Mosana said:  "We have been asking the department to deploy guards at all the schools in Khayelitsha, but we have not yet received the guards," and added that that teachers felt vulnerable when they taught pupils as there was no one to guard their schools.  "Criminals disrupt learning and tuition and rob teachers of their belongings at gunpoint in broad daylight, leaving them traumatised," she said.  Mosana claimed armed "thugs" had shot three teachers at several schools last year and four this year.  She added that residents were angry at the courts for letting off "school robbers" and giving them bail.  A Western Cape Education Department spokesperson said the department had allocated extra funding to schools in the area for security.

• Read the full original of the above GroundUp report regard by Vincent Lali at News24

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