- School safety must protect both learners and teachers, not treat their rights as competing interests.
- Educators are increasingly expected to manage volatile classrooms without adequate support.
- Safe schools require effective discipline, stronger implementation of existing policies and shared responsibility from families, communities and government.
Something is deeply concerning about the way we have come to talk about school safety in our country. Almost every other day, another video appears on social media showing learners fighting, bullying one another, confronting teachers or engaging in behaviour that raises serious questions about what is happening inside our schools.
Police school raids continue to uncover dangerous weapons and prohibited substances on school grounds, while educators are increasingly expected to manage difficult and sometimes volatile situations. The videos are disturbing, but perhaps what is even more disturbing is how quickly we have become used to seeing them on our social media feeds.
This raises an important question. Are our schools really safe, and when we talk about school safety, are we protecting everyone inside the school gates, learners and staff members alike?
Much of the conversation on school safety understandably focuses on learners, and it should. After all, children have the right to learn in an environment where they are protected from violence, bullying, abuse and intimidation.
However, another group in those same classrooms and on school grounds whose safety deserves attention is teachers and other staff members. Teachers are expected to educate, guide, maintain discipline and intervene when situations between learners become difficult or intense. But what really happens when the teacher becomes the target?
Where does a teacher draw the line? This is one of the most uncomfortable questions we need to ask ourselves. Teachers are expected to maintain discipline, but they must also do so within the law. With corporal punishment being prohibited, and rightfully so, schools are expected to use appropriate disciplinary processes and positive forms of discipline.
But classrooms are not always as straightforward as policies make them sound. Imagine standing in front of a classroom where a learner is openly challenging your authority as a teacher, another learner is being intimidated, and tensions are escalating.
What is the teacher supposed to do? Intervene too forcefully, and the teacher could face serious consequences or even lose their job. Do too little, and they may be accused of failing to protect other learners or risk getting themselves hurt in the process.
This is not an argument for teachers to be given permission to use excessive force or disregard learners’ rights. It is an argument for teachers to have clear, realistic and effective support when discipline moves beyond what an individual educator can reasonably manage. A teacher should not have to choose between protecting a learner and protecting themselves.
The changing discipline in classrooms
Anyone who speaks to teachers or follows education conversations will know that classroom discipline has become an increasingly difficult issue.
Teachers are dealing with learners who bring challenges from beyond the classroom, bullying, family difficulties, peer pressure, social media conflicts and exposure to violence. These issues can quickly find their way into the school environment.
At the same time, learners themselves are under pressure. Some are afraid to attend school because of bullying or intimidation, while others may feel unsafe in classrooms or during breaks.
This should not become a battle between teachers and learners. It should force us to examine the environment in which both groups are expected to learn, teach, function, or rather, coexist.
Police raids in schools
When dangerous objects such as knives, guns or prohibited substances such as drugs, alcohol or vapes are found at schools, police intervention and searches may be necessary.
But we need to be honest with ourselves. A police raid can only address what is found on that particular day. It cannot, by itself, address why these problems are entering our schools in the first place. We simply cannot police our way out of every problem.
If a learner brings a dangerous object to school, we need to ask why. If a learner repeatedly bullies others, we need to ask what interventions are taking place. If prohibited substances are finding their way onto school premises, we need to look beyond the school gates and into what is happening in the surrounding community.
South Africa already has a National School Safety Framework, school codes of conduct and disciplinary structures. The question, therefore, is not simply whether we have policies, but if those policies are working effectively on the ground.
Teachers are not security officers
Perhaps we have placed too much responsibility on teachers. We expect them to teach the curriculum, identify learning difficulties, support learners emotionally, manage discipline, address bullying and sometimes step into situations that could potentially place them in danger. Even so, teachers are not security officers.
They should not be expected to physically put themselves at risk to manage every serious behavioural problem alone. There must be a point at which the wider school community steps in: principals, school management teams, school governing bodies, district officials, parents and, where necessary, law enforcement and social development services. Teachers need to know that when a situation becomes unsafe, they are not on their own.
Protecting teachers does not mean taking away learners’ rights
This conversation must be handled carefully. Calling for stronger protection for teachers must never become an assumption to remove the rights and dignity of learners. Learners must be protected from abuse, humiliation and unlawful punishment, but protecting learners does not mean ignoring misconduct when another person’s safety is at risk.
Learners have rights. So do teachers. A learner deserves to feel safe walking into a classroom. So does the teacher standing in front of that classroom. Safety should not be selective.
The responsibility belongs to all of us
As much as it is easy to blame teachers, it is equally easy to blame learners. But schools do not and should not exist in isolation. What happens in our homes, communities, on social media and among peer groups eventually finds its way through the school gates.
Parents cannot leave the responsibility of raising children entirely to teachers and then expect those very same teachers to solve every behavioural problem in classrooms and on school grounds. Schools also cannot be expected to solve every social problem either.
This requires a collective response. Parents need to be involved, communities need to support schools, school governing bodies need to play their role, and the Department of Basic Education needs to provide meaningful support. Schools need systems that allow teachers to report serious incidents without feeling that they are on their own.
The saying that it takes a village to raise a child still carries meaning to this very day, but perhaps we have forgotten that the village also has a responsibility to protect the people educating those children.
So, who is protecting our teachers?
This is not about suggesting that teachers are always victims. It is also not about suggesting that learners are always perpetrators, and it certainly is not about weakening the rights of anyone. Those rights must remain protected.
It is about recognising that school safety must involve everyone. We cannot claim to have safe schools if learners are afraid to attend them. We cannot claim to have safe schools if teachers are afraid to intervene when something goes wrong or a fight breaks out.
And we cannot claim to be protecting our education system if the people entrusted with educating our children feel unsupported when confronted with serious behavioural and safety challenges.
South Africa does not need another policy sitting on a shelf. It needs the policies we already have to work where they matter most, inside the classroom, on the school grounds and in the lives of the people who occupy those spaces every day.
Maybe the conversation should move beyond another police raid or another disturbing video on social media. Maybe we should be asking a much bigger question.
What does a genuinely safe school look like, and are we doing enough to make that a reality for both the learner sitting at the desk and the teacher standing in front of the classroom?
Because school safety should never be about choosing between protecting learners and protecting teachers. It should be about protecting the entire school community.
Get your news on the go. Click here to follow the Conviction WhatsApp channel.
The views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Conviction.co.za
