The departmental spokesperson, Howard Ndaba, tells OFM News that the meeting was triggered by a report by the South African Council of Educators (SACE) on violence at schools and the province was found to be amongst the top three provinces after the Western Cape and Limpopo. 

He says during the safety summit in 2018 the province saw it befitting to drive efforts with the hope of curbing issues including safety in schools. OFM News previously reported on several incidents of violence in various schools across the province, including the stabbing of a grade eight learner by a fellow pupil in grade six at the Kgotsofalo Intermediate Farm School in Tierpoort outside of Bloemfontein. 

Ndaba says school violence is a problem in the province and their efforts are to try and deal with it.

The province is the second in Central South Africa, after the North West, to hold a school safety summit in 2019 aimed at delving deep into such issues at school. This followed after the province was bombarded with incidents of violence where teachers and pupils sometimes were at the receiving end of knife attacks by fellow pupils. 

Earlier in 2019, a thirteen-year-old grade 5 learner at the Mateane Primary School in Diretsane village, near Delareyville in the North West, died after he was stabbed in the chest by his grade mate, a 14-year-old. 

In May 2019, a nine-year-old Koster schoolboy, Odirile Mafora, also died in hospital a week after he was allegedly beaten and suffered multiple injuries caused by a 17-year-old Grade 7 learner at Kgalagatsane Primary School on May 10. The teenager allegedly slapped Odirile on the head and pushed him down the stairs at the double-storey school. As the younger boy rolled down the stairs, the teenager followed him and trampled on him on the ground below.

OFM News