MGANDUZWENI – From a distance, Sakhile High bears resemblance to any other high school, however, several of the learners’ parents referred to it as a battleground.
According to the frustrated and equally concerned parents, each and every week there are incidents of violence with learners calling for others’ blood.
“The children attend school armed. Just last week, a group of learners were seen chasing each other from the school to the streets, armed with pangas and knives.
On Friday one of the learners was eventually stabbed,” said one of the parents. Echoing the claims was Mr Sam Mzimela who stays just a stone’s throw away from the school.
“It has become a norm, we witness a scuffle or two from Sakhile learners every week.
Last Wednesday, a group of armed learners, in school uniform, were running like mad men from the premises while hurling hefty insults at each other.
“The fight lasted a long time, but we didn’t see the police or the teachers trying to intervene,” he alleged.
In his own words, he added that it seemed as if the principal and the staff were turning a blind eye to the matter, which according to him, might end up claiming lives.
“Maybe after some bloodshed the teachers and the principal will realise how serious the issue is and start involving the police. It will be unfortunate if innocent lives are affected,” he added.
In a quest to establish the truth behind the parents’ concerns, this journalist paid the school a visit on Monday where the principal, Mr Nelson Khosa, vehemently denied the claims.
“You can see for yourself, there is no violence here. I doubt if the parents who bypassed me and chose to talk to you have children enrolled here.
They would have spoken to me so we could see how to fix the issues, that is if there was a problem,” he said.
Asked about last week’s incidents he said that the fights did not take place on the premises.
“Just now I was speaking to a learner who came to report about the Friday incident and when I questioned him he told me that the stabbing happened outside.
Unfortunately there is nothing we can do when children fight after school hours,” stated Khosa, adding that the only weapons the learners brought with them were their pens, which they used to acquire knowledge.
“As you walked in I presume you saw the sign that no weapons are allowed at this school. You can even check our impressive matric pass rate, it wouldn’t be satisfactory if we were experiencing such problems,” Khosa told Mpumalanga News.
However, after questioning the principal this journalist also spoke to a handful of students, who confirmed that last week’s stabbing incident did take place on the school grounds and that on Wednesday, the armed learners started fighting on the premises before continuing the brawl outside the gate.
Khosa also acknowledged that some of the learners were part of last year’s school-safety programme, where the Department of Community Safety, Security and Liaison in collaboration with the Department of Education, gave more than 240 pupils from different schools the opportunity to interact with inmates at Barberton Prison.
The programme was organised to expose them to a prison environment and discourage them from committing crime.
Spokesperson for the local police, Const Naniki Nonyana confirmed that during their previous random search, they confiscated a number of weapons and dagga from some learners.
“I heard about last week’s incidents and we will continue fighting for a weapon-free environment by continually conducting random searches,” Nonyana said.
