School hooligans are facing the boot

Pupils found to pose a danger to their teachers might be banned from attending any public school in Gauteng.

Education MEC Barbara Creecy has sought legal opinion on whether it would be permissible to "permanently exclude" repeat offenders from the state school system.

"We can't have situations where little hooligans think they can take the law into their own hands and believe that teachers are fair game," Creecy said yesterday.

She has acted after three separate incidents in the last week in which pupils violently assaulted teachers.

At Jim Fouche Primary School in Crosby, a 14-year-old pupil punched a teacher in the face after he was told to remove a jersey that was not part of the uniform. At Glenvista High School, a Grade 8 pupil assaulted his teacher with a chair and a broom while classmates filmed the incident. And at SG Mafaesa Secondary School on the West Rand on Friday, a drunk 17-year-old pupil allegedly assaulted two female teachers.

The problem is nationwide. The 2012 National Schools Violence Study is reported as saying 52% of teachers were verbally abused. Of those, 12% were subjected to physical violence and 3% to sexual violence (groping, etc).

The study showed that one in 10 pupils had been threatened with violence at school. One in 16 reported being a victim of physical assault and one in 20 said they had been sexually assaulted or raped.

In April, the acting chief director for social inclusion and partnership in the Basic Education Department, Shermain Mannah, said the department was concerned about the levels of violence at schools.

"When a school is not safe we consider it a school that is not functional. We as a department are aware that school safety is a critical requirement to education ."

Commenting on MEC Creecy's stance, the CEO of the Federation of Governing Bodies of South African Schools, Paul Colditz, said: "If a governing body finds against a pupil and recommends expulsion and actually gets support from provincial authorities then it will be easier to deal with maintenance of discipline. Pupils will realise ill-discipline will have consequences."

The MEC's move would, however, bring the province into direct conflict with the constitutional right to education.

Creecy admitted to the constitutional conflict but raised another constitutional provision that, she said, was in favour of calls for the legal opinion. The proposed ban on violent pupils would be applied only to repeat offenders, she explained.

"If you have pupils who are repeatedly offending, these people are challenging section 12 of the constitution. Should we impose them on public school after public school? That is an issue I am grappling with," she said.

Section 12 of the constitution guarantees freedom and security of the person and stipulates that citizens are "to be free from all forms of violence from either public or private sources".

Nikki Stein of advocacy group Section 27 said the Schools Act would have to be considered when applying the proposed exclusion. According to the act, if a pupil has been expelled and is of schoolgoing age, the education department must find a place for him or her at another school.

"We also need to look at the seriousness of the misconduct," said Stein. "[Seeking legal opinion] is a serious move. The MEC would agree that [the ban] places a limitation on the right to education."

General secretary of the SA Democratic Teachers' Union Mugwena Maluleke said the 260000-member union supported Creecy's call. But he warned that cases would have to be judged on individual merit, including those in which teachers were found to be in the wrong.

"We are always striving to ensure that pupils and teachers are safe at school but a sanction must go with the gravity of the matter," he said.