'Violence in schools is a national crisis not just an educational crisis'

Education Department's Elijah Mhlanga says more needs to be done in order to curb the scourge of violence in schools.

With the recent violent attacks in South African schools, questions have been raised as to whether parents, teachers and the community are losing the battle against this scourge of violence.

Read: Teenager stabbed to death at Mondeor High School

On Wednesday a 19-year-old boy was found stabbed to death just outside the premises of Mondeor High School, south of Johannesburg.

Should school going pupils be treated like criminals in order for the violence to be curbed?

The spokesperson for the Department of Basic Education Elijah Mhlanga says it has observed that in all school violence incidents, school pupils were involved.

If you look at the Limpopo issue, it was 13-year-olds and 14-year-old involved in the murder of Thoriso Themane, in the North West you saw a 13-year-old killing a 14-year-old and yesterday we saw another 13-year-old killing a teenager.

Elijah Mhlanga, Spokesperson - Department of Basic Education

That has been the trend. It seems like there is something about teenagers and we need to take a much closer look at our boy children to find out what is happening that pushes them to violent behaviour.

Elijah Mhlanga, Spokesperson - Department of Basic Education

This is a national crisis, it's not just an education crisis, in two of the incidences I mentioned, they happened outside schools. You saw that the boy was going to school and was attacked while going to school.

Elijah Mhlanga, Spokesperson - Department of Basic Education

Listen below to the full interview:

This article first appeared on 702 : 'Violence in schools is a national crisis not just an educational crisis'

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