Congress of South African Students (COSAS) members marched to the Mamelodi East Police Station on Friday to demand police action to end criminal activities at schools.
COSAS’ Tshwane Regional Co-ordinator Kagiso Maziya told Tshwane Talks that their march to the police station was not only focused on incidents of women being killed but also on drug abuse, gangsterism and criminal activities in general at schools.
“The Department of Basic Education and the police have failed to address the level of disrespect that is happening at our schools,” said Maziya.
“We therefore request police visibility to avoid criminal incidents like those that took place at Johannesburg schools,” he said.
“When a police officer or prominent person gets killed the police activate a 24-hour notice to arrest the perpetrators and we are saying that this 24- hour notice must also be used in cases where ordinary citizens are victims,” said Maziya as he pointed out in the process that the police must remember that their duty is to protect not only themselves but all the citizens as well.
Maziya also urged learners to stop the habit of lying to their parents that they are going out to visit their friends while in actual fact they are going to sleep over at the homes of their boyfriends because when parents find out that their children are not at the homes of the said girlfriends, they open missing persons’ dockets and this leads to police wasting state resources trying to find them.
He appealed to the police to offer learners programmes which would discourage them from this habit.
He also appealed to the police to protect learners at all times,especially during the time of school exams whereby learners who write exams later in the day walk alone to and from school and are vulnerable to all sorts of attacks.
He said as COSAS they are not implying that the police are useless, but in the same breath the police must show that they are working to protect learners.
18-year-old Grade 10 learner Tebogo Mathabe from Bona Lesedi Secondary School told Tshwane Talks that as learners they are sick-and-tired of women being killed every day, and that it is very concerning that women can’t walk the streets freely due to possible attacks by strangers.
“As COSAS we are still figuring out as to how we will handle the issue of gangsterism at schools and if parents don’t discipline their own children then the children’s bad behaviour won’t change,” lamented Mathabe.
Colonel Selamatsela Digole, who is Support Head at the Mamelodi East Police Station, received and signed the COSAS memorandum on behalf of Mamelodi East station Commander Brigadier Terrence Naidoo.
“We acknowledge the memorandum and we will try to address all issues that COSAS has raised therein,” said Colonel Digole.
He said most of the issues raised in the memorandum were already being dealt with by the police; an example being that police do go to various schools to conduct awareness programmes as well as search operations.
He said the “Adopt-a-cop” programme was also up and running at schools.
“As police officers, learners are our kids and we need to guide them and one of the issues that are of concern to us is that of learners bringing weapons to schools,” lamented Digole.
“We are also concerned about their addiction to drugs as such behaviour is not allowed and culprits in this regard would be arrested,” warned Digole.
Copy of Memorandum: