A lack of a proper building structures and strong security gates may have given criminals the idea to hit a local school.
This was the general view of most teachers this week after Steve Bikoville Secondary School in Hammanskraal became the latest target of criminals who broke into the school and stole 40 tablets.
The government is yet to build a proper structure and fence, and pupils still attend classes in containers.
Hammanskraal police spokesperson, Sergeant Makgotso Mphenyeke said two security guards at the school were accosted by six men and held at gunpoint as others gained entry into the principal’s office through a window.
They were ordered into one of the classrooms at gunpoint, tied with a piece of wire before the suspects broke a window and gained entrance into the principal’s office.
“They then opened the safe and stole 40 tablets, cash and cellphones belonging to learners,” she said.
Mphenyeke said they were yet to establish the amount of stolen cash and the number of stolen cellphones. She said they were still puzzled how the men opened the safe.
“We are investigating a case of business robbery as this is a school, not a residence. No one has been arrested,” she said
The school’s deputy principal, Mapula Seroto expressed concern over how the lack of a proper building structure “compromised security” at the school.
“We are still shocked by what happened. We are now afraid to leave important equipment at the school,” she said.
The tablets were donated to the school by the Gauteng department of education as part of its plans to go digital and paperless.
Maths and natural sciences teacher at the school, Zintle Phakathi said the theft of the tablets has dealt academic activities at the school a huge blow.
“The curriculum for our grade 8 and 9 pupils for English and maths was on the tablets,” Phakathi said.
She said the tablets contained quite a number of programmes their curriculum was based on.
“Worksheets, tasks and so forth were all saved there,” she said.
The learners also used the tablets as an extra resource to search for information.
“Now we have to use chalk boards and textbooks,” she said.
Rekord previously reported on a trend of criminals targeting schools for tablets, which form part of Gauteng education department’s pilot project to modernise classrooms.
Phakathi said she was confident the police would hunt down the thugs, catch them and return the tablets to the school.
She says she is confident the tablet computers could help heal the ailing education system.
Speaking during the handout of the tablets to one of the Gauteng schools recently, Gauteng education MEC, Panyaza Lesufi said all high schools in the province will go paperless by 2018.
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