Lawlessness at schools must be stopped

KZN tops the country when it comes to the number of progressed matric pupils – a figure that has sharply risen from 10 633 in 2015 to 27 033 last year.

While this initiative is lauded for affording struggling pupils a second chance to complete matric, it is also a dangerous double-edged sword.

The violent protests at Bonginhlanhla High School in Pongola last week is a case in point of learners blatantly ‘biting the hand that feeds them’.

Intentionally disrupting teaching and learning and looting the school over a programme meant to help them, progressed matric pupils went on the rampage because they did not want to be part of the modularisation syllabus.

This system allows progressed learners to write examinations for some of their subjects this year and complete the rest in March next year.

The teachers’ staff room was set alight, laptops and school computers were damaged and the school tuck shop looted during the violent protest, which resulted in the suspension of all educational activity.

Money was also taken from a safe in the principal’s office. Three suspects arrested for theft were aged between 17 and 19 – a clear indication that the older learners were not interested in furthering their studies.

As teachers tried to resume lessons, the pupils lazily sat backwards and when questioned about their ‘new sitting style’, they ran out of the classrooms, singing and throwing thrones in a fit of anger.

The sad reality is that in a noble attempt to help older learners back into an already saturated schooling system, we are not only placing other learners and teachers at a disadvantage and risk, but we are also setting academically poor learners up for failure.

If they are unable to complete matric, it is highly unlikely they will reach minimal requirements to enter tertiary institutions.

We cannot tolerate a culture of lawlessness at schools where pupils threaten teachers and stop teaching and learning by force.

This rogue and volatile element must be eliminated from our school system.

At other schools in Pongola last week, teaching and learning were also suspended after a group of learners armed with bush knives and sticks fought over girlfriends, while at the second school, pupils demanded that the school principal, security guards and catering staff be relieved of their duties.

The KZN Department of Education and SAPS must step in immediately to restore order at the affected schools.

These barbaric acts must stop as they are mere delaying tactics to halt the examinations.