Graphic: John McCann. Data source: National Schools Violence Study
The many acts of violence in South African schools, from pupils assaulting each other to attacks on teachers, has led to a frenzy of finger-pointing, blame-shifting and calls for untenable, unconstitutional and ultimately very harmful responses. None of this serves any useful purpose, and will certainly not even start to allow resolution of the very real, and major, challenge that the education system faces when it comes to violence.
In a report last year the United Nations Children's Fund identified three reasons why school violence needs to be addressed: it is a fundamental violation of children's basic rights, it undermines the schools' potential contribution to building social cohesion at a community level and it has a profoundly negative economic and social impact (conversely, the absence of school violence can make a substantial contribution to the development capacity of countries).
The government has recognised the scale of the problem, the potential it has to undermine the education system in its entirety and to adversely affect the economic and political gains we have made as a country since 1994. At the launch of a protocol between the department of basic education and the South African Police Service in August, the deputy minister of basic education said the recent acts of violence "could lead to the unravelling of our proud democracy". The department is working with a range of stakeholders and civil society partners, including the Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention, to put in place adequate strategies and measures to make schools safer.
Calling it a crisis
The labelling of what has been happening as a "crisis", however, can itself be problematic. If we accept that the situation is a crisis we have to accept that we have been in the same state of crisis for at least five years. Two national studies on violence in schools have shown that in 2008, 22% of pupils throughout the country had experienced violence at school; and in 2012 this increased fractionally to 22.2% — a change that is not statistically significant. These 2012 levels are largely borne out by other research conducted last year by Unisa and others.
Levels of corporal punishment, a more systemic form of violence, despite being a criminal offence, do show a (very worrying) slight increase from 47.9% in 2008 to 49.8% of pupils in 2012 who report that they were caned or spanked.
It is also interesting to note that the initial 2008 School Violence Baseline Study was initiated in response to exactly the same scenario we have faced over the past few months — a number of high-profile acts in the space of a few months and the recognition that there was no data against which we could assess whether school violence was "spiralling out of control", to quote one media headline at the time.
Treating school violence as a "crisis" is also, both directly and indirectly, counter-productive and may result in further negative outcomes for children and young adults. Some of the responses that we have seen to what has been happening in schools provide perfect examples. Over the past two months there have been calls to reinstate corporal punishment in schools, to bring police in to schools, to increase the use of police searches and to expel children identified as bullies.
What the research says
When considering some of these responses, which are often intuitive, and may be well-intentioned, one should also perhaps consider some of the facts borne out in both snapshot and longitudinal research (that is, conducted over a period of time) from South Africa, North America and Europe:
• The international evidence shows that corporal punishment increases, not decreases, the risk of anti-social behaviour in and outside the classroom. Representative data from the recent National School Violence Study in South Africa shows that schools where corporal punishment is not used in the classroom are at no greater risk of violence; in fact, the research shows the opposite. Pupils who reported being beaten in the home or classroom were significantly more at risk of being involved in violence;
• Bringing police in to schools has been shown to have no long-term benefits for school safety. Where improvements are seen (such as reported levels of a drop in violence), these are shortlived and return to previous levels shortly after the departure of the police. Having police in schools allows school managements and government to absolve themselves from instituting any systemic change in the school environment in order to make it safer, and undermines the responsibility that should be placed on the school for maintaining safety;
• Longitudinal data from the Unites States, collected over 30 years in Texas, points to the fact that where pupils have been referred to the police, removed from the school by the police or otherwise dealt with by them in the school environment, this has significantly increased the chance of their developing further behavioural problems that encourage criminality and violent behaviour in later life — something that, given our already untenably high levels of violence, we should want to avoid at all costs. The same research shows that children who are dealt with in the school environment with the support of school social workers and psychologists are at significantly less risk of developing further behavioural problems;
• Where police have been bought in to conduct random searches this has often resulted in specific targeting of individual pupils perceived as "problematic" by educators and principals, which then feeds into the same cycle of conflict with the law. Problem behaviour that can be addressed with the appropriate intervention from psychologists, social workers or family is criminalised, with children removed from, or dropping out of, the education system, and remaining in conflict with the law as they grow older; and
• The last example of "crisis responses" seen over the past few months is the introduction of, or call for, school security officers or armed guards. Many schools in fact already have security guards, and there is no evidence that these schools show any lower levels of violence than those without. This is most likely related to the nature of the violence and points to the importance of fully understanding the type of violence that occurs in schools in order to deal with it. The classroom is the place where most of the violence takes place, including both violence against pupils and against teachers.
Armed security guards have little or no influence or control in the classroom, so will be unable to provide any support or assistance where it is really needed. Of course, there is also the seldom-mentioned fact that where security guards are present, they are sometimes implicated in violence — particularly sexual violence — against pupils.
Who should be held responsible?
So, if there are very clear responses that rigorous evidence suggests should be avoided, what exactly can we expect from schools and from government to address school violence? While recognising that schools or the education system cannot be held responsible for the causes of the violence that may occur at school, they can be held responsible for tolerating, condoning or reinforcing existing violent or anti-social behaviour or messaging of any kind on school premises.
This may be, for example, by turning a blind eye to, or dismissing as inconsequential, acts of bullying (often seen as unimportant until they develop into more violent acts); resolving conflict by violent means; not acting on cases of bullying or conflict that may be bought to their attention; or not addressing early-warning signs of conflict and anti-social behaviour in the classroom.
School management should also be held responsible for taking action to make the school environment as safe as possible, to identify and manage threats to safety, or behaviour, or places that may make pupils and teachers feel unsafe, and to take action to remedy this. This means being proactive in addressing safety concerns, rather than responding to incidents once they happen.
Every school has a very clear and prescribed responsibility to ensure that certain steps are taken to manage, or, as far as possible, prevent these acts occurring in the school environment and to ensure that the learning environment is safe for all children. There can be no abdication of responsibility by the schools, or by the department, to ensure this happens.
This goes beyond the situational aspects of security, from ensuring adequate physical infrastructure —fencing, gates, lighting — is in place and maintained to implementing specific policies that address issues of safety.
Suggestions for action
These might include implementing clear codes of conduct for pupils, educators and all staff; ensuring through contractual agreements the engagement of parents around any behavioural issues that their children might exhibit; taking steps to understand where in each school pupils and teachers feel safe and unsafe; putting in place safety teams, and responding immediately to any reports of violence experienced by pupils or educators.
Responding to violence should be extended beyond only reporting actual acts of violence perpetrated to knowledge of any acts, or even suspicion of violence, in order for the school to investigate them. This suggests that pupils and educators must be encouraged to report concerns before they materialise in actual violence. In order for this to happen, they need to feel that they are safe when reporting, that they will experience no reprisals and that action will be taken on their reports.
Importantly, educators must be able to identify the warning signs and take them seriously enough to deal with them and report them. In several of the cases recently reported, there is some suggestion that schools might have been made aware of problems before they escalated but no action was taken. School governing bodies have a crucial role to play in the management of these processes and ensuring that they occur in schools.
Where schools fail to take the steps above, the individual school needs to be held accountable. Similarly, where the education department is aware of cases and fails to act, or fails to provide the necessary support to schools, government should be held accountable for such failings.
The reality is also that none of these, or any incidents of violence in schools, comes without some form of warning: they always have roots in often less serious behavioural issues that can be identified both at home and in the classroom. By learning to identify these warning signs, and acting on them before cases escalate, we can prevent the senseless acts that impact so negatively not just on those directly involved, but on those other pupils who are witness to them indirectly. This extends to acts of bullying as well, which are often not seen as particularly worrying or cause for concern (after all, we all know someone who was bullied at school), but frequently escalate into much more serious acts of violence.
In summary, school violence is a major problem that is not under control; it threatens the positive learner outcomes we so desperately need at this point in our economic and democratic growth; and it breeds a feeling of insecurity and lack of safety that undermines the wellbeing of communities in general.
To call it a crisis however, will undermine genuine efforts by all of society to resolve the challenge, to address the harm that results and to provide the support that pupils, educators, parents and the school as an entire entity need right now.
Let's recognise school violence for what it is, acknowledge its scale and look at sustainable, long-term solutions that will allow young people to grow and learn at school, not only achieving academically but learning the life skills, inter-personal skills, resilience and coping mechanisms and conflict-resolution skills that should be part of growing up and that are necessary to produce healthy, well-balanced and pro-social young adults.
Patrick Burton is the executive director of the Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention, the author of the 2008 National Schools Violence Baseline study and co-author of the 2012 National Schools Violence Study