DA calls on SAPS to better patrol crime hotspot schools

10 September 2018

The DA is calling on Northern Cape Police Commissioner, Rismati Shivuri, to take a proactive stance towards school violence and assign adequate police patrols to schools that have become crime hotspots in the Northern Cape.

This comes after a near fatal stabbing at High School Carlton Van Heerden in Upington last week, whereby two learners allegedly went at each other with knives inside a classroom.

The fact that a learner’s life was almost lost in a school classroom, is intolerable. Without safe schools, pupils across the province face a bleak future.

While the DA appreciates the subsequent commitment by the police to assist with school checks at High School Carlton Van Heerden, we are calling on Shivuri to do more.

High School Carlton Van Heerden is just one of many schools battling to end the in-house violence. A preventative and not a reactive approach is needed.

Safe Schools cannot be achieved by Basic Education officials alone. Government must take hands and implement key interventions to keep our schools and our children safe. In particular, it is critical that enough SAPS resources are made available to ensure efficient and effective school checks and patrols.

Our children’s wellbeing and safety should never be compromised.

Only change under a DA-led government will ensure that the right of our children to a safe learning environment is upheld.

Issued by Safiyia Stanfley, Spokesperson of Education, DA, 10 September 2018