Escalating violence in South Africa’s schools is a reflection of society and not of a defunct education curriculum, the national Department of Education said on Thursday.
This comes after criticism that an under-developed school curriculum fails to prevent school violence because it does not address the emotional and psychological development of pupils.
”Western countries are educating kids for careers and are forgetting that these children are just children. They [Western societies] are not engaging their hearts and minds. What about developing their personalities?” asked Sam Pillay, chairperson of a Durban-based anti-drug forum and founder of a drug rehabilitation centre.
A tally of school violence at the beginning of August included a 15-year-old boy being stabbed in the neck with a pair of scissors and an 18-year-old pupil being arrested after he threatened a peer with a gun in a school toilet.
In July, a 16-year-old boy died after he was punched in the head by a friend at a KwaZulu-Natal South Coast holiday resort, and in the North West, a Rustenburg matric pupil had to undergo surgery after being assaulted by a fellow pupil.
”The behaviour of learners does not have a correlation to the curriculum, as suggested earlier,” said Lunga Ngqengelele, spokesperson for the Department of Education.
He said the behaviour of pupils is adopted from what they see in the community.
Ngqengelele disagreed with Pillay that life-orientation programmes did not deal sufficiently with pupils’ emotional development. ”You cannot ascribe it [school violence] to a single thing.”
Pillay said: ”Despite life-orientation programmes in schools there are still pregnancies, suicides and violence, and at alarming rates too.”
Research done by the University of Witwatersrand’s education policy unit suggests that room for curricula development can be made.
Salim Vally, a senior researcher with the unit, said: ”There are definite tensions in our society caused by socio-economic and socio-cultural issues, but there is also room to make the curriculum exciting and more inspiring to pupils.”
Vally said, however, that the curriculum cannot be isolated as a factor for the increase in violence among pupils. Teacher training and resources are also inadequate.
Emotional literacy
The Anger and Stress Management Centre of South Africa agreed. ”There is a lack of infrastructure in the education system. In fact, raising emotional literacy has been a victim of the curriculum,” said Shelton Kartun, founder and director of the organisation.
He said teachers need to be better trained in the aspect of psychology in teens. ”Life-orientation programmes include assertiveness and conflict resolution, but pupils needed to learn social values and morals.”
A lack of anti-bullying policy has also been noted because teachers, ”even headmasters, are confused about what constitutes bullying at school”.
”In the United Kingdom, where I have practised for 20 years, there is a well-defined zero tolerance for pupil-on-pupil violence. Here [South Africa] there is a lot of stuff that goes unaddressed,” said Kartun.
Teachers need to be trained to recognise and deal with a behavioural problem, to ”also make the child being affected [by a bully] feel safe enough to confide in the teacher”.
Kartun said emotional behavioural disorder (EBD) is fairly undiagnosed in children in South Africa and that the disorder affects a number of pupils, possibly accounting for the increase in violence at schools.
”These are not bad kids; they have a problem which can be contained with proper training of teachers. It is totally inappropriate and unprofessional for teachers to ignore disruptive kids or to label them because it worsens the situation.”
Programmes
Kartun agreed with Pillay that programmes such as basic yoga, and learning about one’s self and how to live in harmony with other cultures, religions and mindsets — as practised at schools in India — could show good results with children in South Africa.
The use of these principles at a drug rehabilitation centre founded by Pillay in Chatsworth, south of Durban, helped 3 300 pupils to admit themselves voluntarily to undergo rehabilitation.
”Kids in our country need to learn to relax. They live in a world of technological sophistication, fast-paced living and high levels of competition to be the best, parents divorcing and many of them [parents] facing financial and job insecurity,” Kartun said.
He added that behavioural problems in children can result from a lack of affection and love from parents.
In a speech given by Minister of Education Naledi Pandor at a school in the Free State recently, she said: ”The Education Department [DOE] has begun to intensify its programmes against violence and unsafe schools.
”The DOE and the Department of Safety and Security have developed a resource manual, Signpost for Safer Schools, which is intended to assist teachers in preventing and managing negative conduct in schools.”
Pandor explained that the manual encourages the creation of school safety committees, which will work closely with the South African Police Service.
”Further steps include the partnership with the United Nations office on drugs and crime, the training of implementing agents in all the provinces who will support the implementation of the policy framework and guidelines for the prevention and management of drug use and/or abuse in schools.” — Sapa