This morning Western Cape Education Minister Donald Grant and Community Safety Minister Albert Fritz visited Groenvlei Secondary in Landsdowne to oversee a search and seizure operation by South African Police Services (SAPS).
This follows two separate incidents last week, where five minors were arrested for possession of illegal firearms at two schools. The arrests were made following calls from principals at two of our provinces schools that they had heard that there was a firearm on the school premises.
"Thankfully, in both instances, no one was hurt, the firearms were found and the perpetrators arrested," said Grant.
"But the very fact that there were such weapons in our schools both concerns and angers me. These firearms pose a severe danger to our learners and it is simply unacceptable that these minors put the lives of their fellow young learners at risk. "
"No weapon, of any sort, should make it into our schools. It will simply not be tolerated."
Grant said that the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) has some measures in place to reduce the risk of weapons entering our schools. These include the use of hand-held metal detectors at 109 of our schools as well as search and seizure operations by SAPS at schools that are high risk.
"We have found that these measures have been yielding some positive results at some of our schools. Metal detectors are a case example if properly managed by our schools."
Grant said that the detectors have prevented many objects that could be used as weapons from entering our schools, such as screwdrivers, knives and scissors.
"If they had not been picked up by the detectors, these objects could have been used to cause bodily harm. Also through the search, our schools have been able to identify learners that are guilty of possession. This then allows us to address the behaviour of that learner, be it through disciplinary action or behavioural counselling and conflict management," he said.
"Where searches are frequent, some schools have reported that the number of weapons found has waned. Acting as a deterrent, learners then do not take the chance of bringing any dangerous objects into their school."
Grant said that the police search and seizures have yielded similar results, with various weapons being found during the raids, as well as acting as a future deterrent.
Because of the positive effects of these searches, the WCED will be increasing the amount of searches done on learners this year. This will include searches with metal detectors, by school management teams, or by the police.
The search at Groenvlei Sec was conducted in two classes, one Grade 9 class and one Grade 10 class. A narcotics and explosives search was done, as well as a physical search of the learners. No weapons, alcohol or drugs were found.
One cellphone was confiscated as it contained pornographic material. The phone was handed over to the School Governing Body.
Bronagh Casey
Spokesperson for Minister of Education, Donald Grant
Tel: 021 467 2377
Cell: 072 724 1422