Sunday Times reports that a gang of rogue pupils has turned a Pretoria high school into a den of crime, donning balaclavas at break time to rob other pupils of cellphones, running gambling rings, coming to school drunk, swearing at teachers, disrupting lessons and bringing drugs and weapons into the classroom.
Some of the items confiscated from members of the gang this year included knives, drugs, pre-rolled dagga joints and a signal jammer, which is often used to steal cars. Teachers at Lotus Gardens Secondary School are angry, frustrated and feel helpless because their pleas for action have fallen on deaf ears. After a year of trying to get the principal and the school governing body to act against the gang ringleaders, the terrified teachers say they can no longer stay silent. The gang is led by three grade 11 pupils – all aged 19. They regularly come to school under the influence of alcohol and disrupt learning by walking into classes and interrupting lessons. When a teacher challenges them, they hurl insults and threaten to harm them physically. A Gauteng police spokesperson confirmed that a case of intimidation had been opened by a teacher in connection with an incident at the school on Tuesday when the leader of the gang allegedly jumped over the school fence and tried to attack a female teacher in her classroom. When asked what was being done to address ill-discipline at the school, Gauteng education department spokesperson, Steve Mabona, said the school was “a microcosm of society and what occurs in our society finds expression in our schools.” He added that the department was implementing programmes to offset some of the challenges. Last week, the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu), while marking World Teachers Day, warned that escalating violence in SA schools was “severely undermining public education.”
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Isaac Mahlangu at Sunday Times (subscriber access only)
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