According to reports, hundreds of residents, teachers, and pupils marched to the Khayelitsha Magistrate’s Court on Thursday to hand over a memorandum demanding security measures be taken to make their schools safer.
News 24 reported saying “the protest, organised by the Khayelitsha Education Forum (KEF), called for the Western Cape Department of Education to install metal detectors at all schools and hire security guards 365 days a year.”
The memo that was reportedly handed over to the court called for an “end to gangsterism and drug abuse at schools” as well as an investigation into all reported cases of this nature.
Reportedly, KEF chairperson, Nowawethu Mosana, said: “We have been asking the department to deploy guards at all the schools in Khayelitsha, but we have not yet received the guards.”
Mosana added that teachers felt vulnerable when they taught pupils as there was no one to guard their schools. “Criminals disrupt learning and tuition and rob teachers of their belongings at gunpoint in broad daylight, leaving them traumatised,” she said.
Mosana allegedly claimed that armed “thugs” had shot three teachers at several schools last year and four this year.
The KEF held the protest on the same day as the State of the Nation Address reportedly in an attempt to draw the government’s attention to the school safety crisis.
