We are living in truly scary times when police have to be called to intervene in violence at schools — and among pupils at primary schools, at that.
The Eastern Cape education department has scheduled a meeting for Friday to address the crisis and figure out how to restore order at Tjaart van der Walt Primary School in Algoa Park.
This after police were called to quell the situation at the school on Wednesday, where a child’s eye was bust open, a knife was seized, and it emerged that eight pupils were involved in daily fighting matches.
Education department spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima said an investigation was launched after two pupils fought at school on Wednesday morning, resulting in one pupil’s eye being cut open by another pupil’s fist.
While nobody was stabbed, a knife was also confiscated.
“When we investigated further, we found out that eight pupils have been threatening each other and fighting every day after school on their way home.
“The police were brought in and a meeting was set up for Friday at 10am with the pupils, their parents and the police to get to the bottom of this.
“It emerged that outsiders have also been waiting for the pupils to come out of school and have been targeting them on their way home.”
News of the violence at the school elicited a range of responses, as expected, with one person on the HeraldLIVE Facebook page referring to the unruly pupils as “lunatics”.
Others are conflicted as far as discipline is concerned, with some readers saying it is the responsibility of parents to instil discipline at home and others calling for discipline to be reinforced at schools — by bringing back corporal punishment.
And while there may be differing opinions as to who is ultimately responsible for disciplining children, one thing is clear: discipline plays a critical role in shaping children’s behaviour and instilling values which, in turn, prepare them for future responsibilities.
For this reason, we believe both school and home environments have a role to play in enforcing discipline — without the threat of corporal punishment or any other sort of violence.
School discipline provides structure and teaches children the importance of rules and responsibility, while home discipline is geared towards nurturing moral values and self-awareness.
The challenge is how to combine these two environments to ensure children are disciplined in such away that they become well-rounded young individuals who then grow into adults who make a meaningful contribution to society.
HeraldLIVE
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