JOHANNESBURG - Schools are meant to be places of learning and safety, but a series of violent incidents across South Africa have left many parents questioning whether classrooms are becoming increasingly dangerous.
From an armed robbery at a Gauteng primary school to an alleged fatal assault in KwaZulu-Natal and a pupil death still under investigation in the Western Cape, communities are demanding accountability.
To deal with the issue of school violence, an educational activist, William Zulu, said one must begin at the root cause.
He argued that social, family, and institutional factors often drive this crisis; as such, parents and the community must play a greater role in raising children and teaching them discipline.
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Zulu said back in the day, raising a child was a collective effort from the entire community where adults had every right to discipline a child regardless of whether they birthed them or not.
It was a way of instilling discipline, but also collectively caring for the child.
But as years went by, laws began to take shape, from the enforcement of stricter rules regarding corporal punishment to rights that protect children from violence and abuse.
Zulu said he acknowledges the laws and said the goal is now to find ways to discipline the child without breaking the law.
“The law is a law, and at schools there are legislation and policies.”
Zulu continued to say that this is different for households.
According to Zulu, while parents need to abide by the laws of the country, they also have a responsibility to raise a child in a way that shapes their manners and disciple.
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This, he said, ultimately translates to how they behave at school.
According to StatsSA, the proportion of learners aged five years and older who experienced corporal punishment declined by 10 percentage points over the 14 years.
While the decrease was gradual in the earlier years, the sharpest decline occurred between 2015 and 2024.
The practice was outlawed in schools under Section 10 of the South African Schools Act (No. 84 of 1996), which criminalises its use by educators.
The ban is rooted in Constitutional protections that safeguard children’s dignity and their right to be free from violence.
Looking at incidents involving teachers and pupils, the numbers are higher, sitting at 156 229 compared to pupil-to-pupil violence at 87 059 for the 2024 year.
In total, 1 156 009 learners said they experienced some form of violence at school, showing that the problem is widespread.
About 14% reported physical violence from teachers, compared with roughly 8% from other learners.
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The Department of Basic Education's Schooling 2030 plan makes school safety a key priority.
It aims to improve the safety and quality of learning environments for both learners and teachers.
By 2030, every learner should attend a safe, secure, and respectful school.
The plan situates school safety within “social protection interventions, school safety” aimed at mitigating poverty and vulnerability.
Much like Zulu, Matakanye Matakanye of the National Association of School Governing Bodies (NASGB) agreed that tackling violence in schools must start beyond the school gates.
"What we are saying is that parents, communities, become parents. Parent these children. The second part of the program is to become involved in the education of your children.
“As much as you have elected the school and have elected the governing body to represent you, you have to support the SGB. If they don't do what you have sent them to do, get rid of them and put other school governing bodies,”.