Congress of South African Students (COSAS) has called on Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi to deploy safety wardens who are also known as AmaPanyaza to schools across the province to deal with violence. This comes after a grade Grade 10 pupil from Aha-Thuto Secondary School in Orange Farm was stabbed to death allegedly by a fellow pupil on Tuesday afternoon inside school grounds.
STABBING INSIDE SCHOOL GROUNDS
In a statement, the police said they received a complaint of a stabbing at Aha - Thuto Secondary School. It is alleged that two teenagers had a fight over a teaser choke instrument a day earlier and their friend intervened and stopped them. The next day during lunch break, the two met again and a fight ensued. The 16-year-old suspect took out a knife and stabbed the 17-year-old in the thigh. The victim was rushed to Stratford Clinic for medical attention where he succumbed to his injuries. The Gauteng Department of Education spokesperson Steve Mabona confirmed the incident.
SCHOOLS ARE WAR ZONES
Cosas's Nkateko Sithole said the incident didn't come as a shock because violence in schools is rife but there's no solid intervention to end it. "We are very disappointed as Cosas that Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi as a former Education MEC in the province didn't deploy the safety wardens to schools to address this problem. If safety wardens are at schools such fatal incidents could be avoided," he added. Sithole said they will engage the office of the premier to come up with a solution to this problem. "We're disappointed as Cosas, yes, jobs have been created and this is good for the economy, but none of them have been deployed to guard our schools, the task that is to guard our schools and guard the future of this country has been neglected, so there's no need for us to be creating jobs if we can't protect the future of this country," said Sithole. Sithole said that they will ask the premier to deploy at least 1000 of them to schools. The police confirmed that a suspect was arrested and will appear in court soon on a charge of murder.
