[There is no discipline in our schools. Ask the Govt why they took it away. Jan]

By Terri-Liza Fortein and Theresa Smith

The death of a 15-year-old Bothasig boy after an alleged fight with a classmate is a grim reminder that child-on-child violence in the Western Cape is on the increase.

Chadh Rowley, a pupil at Bosmansdam High School, collapsed and died in a Richwood park last week after he was allegedly attacked by a classmate who is a gang member.

The principal of Chadh’s school has denied that there is a gang or drug problem at the school.

‘We have children being attacked in dark corners’
But he admitted there was friction between some boys. Several parents, including Chadh’s mother, had complained about this.

The friction was caused by a game the Grade 9 and 10 pupils played during lunch breaks, when pupils would hit one another as a form of entertainment, but no one had been seriously hurt before.

Clinical psychologist Pandy Neser said there was a clear link between the violent and aggressive behaviour of children and the amount of time they spent watching reality television shows and playing video games.

“The school holidays are over now but many kids spent hours immersing themselves in TV shows during the break and it does affect them.

“Often the boundaries between what is reality and what is fantasy become blurred and this could be why children are becoming increasingly violent,” said Neser.

She added that South Africans lived in a particularly violent society, with violent robberies, hijackings, rapes, and road rage incidents occurring frequently. The population was affected by this directly or indirectly.

The problem of violence in schools is not exclusive to Bosmansdam High School.

Winston Fillies, principal at Portland High School in Mitchells Plain, said at his school violence between pupils was “the order of the day”.

“We have children being attacked on isolated corners of the sports fields and in dark corners of the school, and we also see learners attacking others by surprise.”

Fillies added that violence at his school was not only physical but emotional.

“We see many kids teasing one another, bullying and blackmailing is also prevalent and we have the sexual violence as well.”

Fillies has been an educator for the past 28 years and he said he had seen a dramatic increase in violence among children in the past few years.

“It could be the socio-economic issues in the children’s neighbourhoods or the effects of television or music videos, but the situation is deteriorating,” said Fillies.

Meanwhile the principal of a prestigious Rondebosch school said they had the occasional incident where two boys would get into a fight and their female pupils had emotional exchanges from time to time, but violence was not a problem.

“Fights are pretty rare, but when we do have our pupils behaving violently we come down on them pretty hard,” the principal said.

The principal who has been working in schools for about 35 years, said he had also seen an increase in violence among pupils in recent years and added that schools in areas where poverty and unemployment were rife probably experienced more problems with violence.

Police spokesperson Elna de Beer said: “The youth are our priority, as they have the future of our country in their hands, and we cannot do enough to protect them.”

She added the police engaged with the public and parents in social crime-prevention programmes on a regular basis, and mentorship programmes were being launched to educate the youth on the dangers facing them.

Police said the cause of Chadh’s death had not been determined and the autopsy report was still to be finalised.

A witness at the scene of Chadh’s death told the Cape Argus that Chadh and a boy from the rival gang had “really climbed into each other, hitting each other on the head, in the face and the ribs”.

This article was originally published on page 3 of Cape Argus on January 19, 2005

Source: Independent Online (IOL)
URL: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click…/p>