Young people must be taught how to resolve conflict in a non-violent way, the National Institute for Crime Prevention and the Reintegration of Offenders (Nicro) said on Tuesday.
The country was presently gripped by a wave of teenage violence ”which defied any reason”, the institute said.
Nicro firmly believed in a return to ”the time-tested systems of positive values, conflict resolution and building self esteem as antidote to this unrelenting force of vicious activity by youth-on-fellow-youth”.
Parents and adults should collectively rise to the occasion to educate their children and set proper examples.
”This approach should be extended to the entire school curriculum and parents must engage in school-based efforts, as a condition to school enrolment of their children,” Nicro said.
Presently youth followed the ways of dealing with conflict demonstrated by adults and significant others in their lives, by community and societal examples, by what they saw in the broadcast and print media, the institute said.
”The adults have to lead by example and we have to acknowledge that as adults and parents we are lacking and not always the best role models.”
Recently Mfundo Ntshangase, a pupil at King Edward VII School, and a friend were repeatedly stabbed by pupils from other schools at a party in Randburg. The friend survived but Ntshangase died.
Earlier this month, a school pupil was stabbed and killed after an argument with another pupil during in Port Elizabeth, while a KwaZulu-Natal pupil was stabbed to death during morning prayers at his school. – Sapa