As gunshots echoed around their school, teachers in Hanover Park scrambled to get their pupils to safety.
|||Cape Town - As gunshots echoed around their school on Tuesday morning, teachers at Blomvlei Primary in Hanover Park scrambled to get their pupils to safety.
One Grade 2 pupil, still on his way to school, narrowly escaped getting shot. Another burst into tears as he walked into school after passing through the crossfire.
Teachers at Blomvlei say many of their days are like this and their pupils are feeling the effects. Some pupils have become aggressive while others have become so traumatised that they need medication to cope.
Hours later, at 4pm on Wednesday, two men aged 36 and 40 were shot dead at Garda Place, Hanover Park. Police would not confirm whether it was gang related, saying the motive was unknown. Police were looking for three gunmen, a spokesman said.
Teachers and principals have now made a desperate plea for help to Community Safety MEC Dan Plato.
Teachers said that while officials would call schools before they visited to make sure the area was safe, teachers no choice but to go to school every morning, not knowing if they would be in danger. They say government needs to intervene to stop the crisis.
“This has been going on for months,” said Blomvlei principal Dawn Petersen. She said some of the recent incidents included:
* The father of a pupil was killed when a heavy object was thrown onto his head. Some of the children witnessed this.
* A Grade 3 pupil’s father was killed about four weeks ago.
* A woman was killed in crossfire at about 10am one morning, in the vicinity of the school. Her body was still there after 3pm.
* A Grade 6 pupil saw someone being killed.
“When the shootings happen you don’t even panic anymore,” she said.
“You just do what you have to do. Make sure all the children are inside the gate and the gates are locked. We call Safe Schools and the police. Parents usually start running to school.”
She said one teacher has six children in her Grade 1 class who have lost someone they knew over the past few months.
“My concern is the children are so desensitised. They can tell you how [gangsters] cock the guns. It’s a huge concern that they are looking at gangsters as their role models. They think abnormal is normal,” Petersen said.
She said safety programmes, which could, for example, be used to teach children not to run towards the sound of gunshots, were also needed.
Grade 7 teacher at Blomvei Shane Johnson said schools in the area were still expected to perform at the same level as other schools despite their troubled circumstances.
Grade 1 teacher Merle du Plessis said that about a week ago, quite a few children were absent because of shootings in the area. She said she recently received two letters from parents who said a family member had been shot and killed.
Dino Abrahams, principal of Crystal Secondary, requested a meeting with Plato, which was held last week.
“Our concern is for the safety of the children between 7.30am and 8am and after three.”
He said one of his pupils was shot in the arm recently. The school also had to cancel several meetings with parents because of gang violence.
Plato’s spokesman, Greg Wagner, said principals in Hanover Park had been asked to forward their safety ideas to Plato so that these could be shared with the provincial Education Department’s Safe Schools division. The proposals would also be discussed with SAPS.
A total of 706 school safety volunteers have been employed at 196 high-risk schools and a pilot project will see safety resource officers, which are metro police officers, assigned to six schools in the metropole next year.
“Gangsters will not be allowed to stop learners from accessing better opportunities. We will work with the affected communities to ensure the safety of our learners,” Plato said.
Bronagh Casey, spokeswoman for Education MEC Donald Grant, said the department was concerned about the increase in gang violence in the area and how it was affecting pupils.
“Given the nature of these incidents, which are happening outside of schools, the Western Cape Education Department will be requesting a meeting with all the school principals and SAPS to discuss what support measures they can offer to protect learners and educators while on their way to and from school.
“The Department of Community Safety has also indicated that they have been in discussions with the principals. We will liaise with them in this regard.”
ilse.fredericks@inl.co.za
Cape Argus