Schools safety fears soar as educator killings trigger urgent calls for protection

Safety concerns are escalating in some parts of Gauteng and the Western Cape schools, where educators are becoming targets of violent crime. Staff members are being attacked in their workspace.

In the past month alone two targets happened in two primary schools.

A primary school principal and administrator were shot in Inxiweni primary school in Johannesburg.

The incident happened on Wednesday evening on 18 November, inside the school’s administration block. Where the principal, a 58-year-old woman, administrator, a 55-year-old woman, and other colleagues were reportedly preparing for a meeting scheduled for later in the week.

Spokesperson of the MEC Xolani Mkhwemte, said that the incident reveals the link between crime in society and how it affects schools directly.

“It highlights the importance of community involvement in school safety. It also means the department must better the partnership with civil society,” Mkhwemte added.

In a separate incident, another school staff member was targeted in Western Cape at Kayamandi primary school in Stellenbosch.

The deputy principal was murdered inside school grounds, and the incident took place Friday afternoon 21 November.

Spokesperson for the Western Cape Education Department, Bronagh Hammond said an armed individual entered the school premises after learners had been dismissed for the day and approached the victim who were seated under a tree.

The killings have introduced fears about safety in and around school premises.

Khulas Kuyeya, a parent of a child who attends at Kayamandi primary school said that her child was shocked when she came back from school.

“My child is now very reluctant of going to school,” Kuyeya added.

Hammond mentioned that the WCED Safe Schools directorate works with the police and local law enforcement to identify high-risk areas and decide where extra support is needed.

“This could include additional security funding, visible patrols before and after school, or deploying school-based officers provided by the Metro Police in the Cape Town Metro,” she added.

Mkhwemte also mentioned that in Gauteng there were almost five schools that have had similar recorded incidents and display high criminogenic factors where a shooting occurred in school premises or in the immediate environment of the school.

These two incidents are raising serious concern showing that there should be new ways to implement safety in South Africa.

According to the Central University of Technology study on implementation of school safety policy in primary and secondary schools, all forms of violence in schools infringe on the fundamental right to education, and an unsafe learning environment diminishes the quality of teaching and learning. Both teachers and learners emerge as the primary victims of school safety incidents.

Kuyeya said that children need counselling and she urges the government to act my adding more securities to ensure the safety in schools.

The department Psychosocial unit is stationed at the school attending to learners and the Employee Assistance Programme is also providing support to educators, to support learners and staff, according to Mkhwemte.

“These units are already on site, the Faith-Based Organisations have also attended,” he said.

The department is reviewing the 2022 environmental scan to assess risks at schools and determine the level of security required.

In 2022 the department of Education survey collected data sample of South African Schools through the national survey of 2000 schools both in primary and secondary schools across all provinces.

According to figure 1 graph 75% of primary school teachers reported feeling safe at their schools. Feelings of safety were above 70% across all provinces, except for the Eastern Cape. The highest feelings of safety were highest in the Western Cape, Limpopo, and Northern Cape. However, in seven out of the nine provinces, primary school teachers felt slightly less safe than principals.

Figure 2 shows that about 73% of secondary school principals and 62% of secondary school teachers reported feeling safe at their schools. The provinces with the highest proportion of principals feeling safe were the Free State (76%), Limpopo Province (78%), the Northern Cape (76%), and the Western Cape (85%). In terms of teachers feeling safe, Limpopo had the highest proportion (75%), while the Eastern Cape (56%) and KwaZulu-Natal (57%) had the lowest. The biggest differences between the views of principals and teachers at secondary schools were observed in the Free State (76% vs. 61%) and the Western Cape (85% vs. 68%), according to the department.

Figure 3 shows that more principals of primary schools across all quintiles felt safe in comparison to teachers at primary schools. The largest gap in feeling safe between principals and teachers was present at Quintile 4 (87% vs. 75%) schools.

This research was done in 2022, and little is known about how teachers and principals feel about their safety in 2024/2025. More research needs to be done.

Mkhwemte said the department is in partnership with SAPS and recently signed the School Safety Protocol with the police. “A partnership with Department of Community Safety has resulted in the development of the Integrated Crime Prevention Strategy.”

Schools must ensure that procedures for safeguarding schools are in place and these include locking of gates, placing a patroller to control access, ensure the school grounds are clean to address Broken Window syndrome effects, maintain general discipline inside the schools are in place, an effective visitor management system to enable identification of visitors and records of visitors to schools, Mkhwemte said. DM