Pretoria - Two primary schools in Winterveldt were burgled and vandalised by criminals who made off with laptops, printing machines and many other electronic materials.
It is alleged that the security guards working at both schools, Dikago Dintle and Mlokotwa Dube, were tied up by the robbers during the burglaries.
President of the Progressive Student Movement, Kabelo Nthekiso, said the matter has been reported to police, who had come to make an assessment at the schools.
Tshwane district SAPS spokesperson, Warrant Officer Johan van Dyk, didn’t respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.
Nthekiso said the student movement has repeatedly pleaded with the SAPS, without success, to patrol around school vicinities.
“We have been making this call from 2016, primarily because we could see the number of challenges our schools have been having.
“This is not only around Winterveld; there have been attacks in Atteridgeville, Soshanguve, Mabopane and Garankuwa.
“The response from the SAPS is that they don’t have the capacity and they don’t have enough vehicles to patrol around the school vicinity,” he said.
The student movement expressed disappointment that the crime-prevention wardens unveiled by Premier Panyaza Lesufi in May have not been effective in fighting crime.
“We were encouraged when the premier announced safety officers. Unfortunately, we see those people in the malls and on the roads during the day.
“We question their scope of work because criminal activities are on the rise. We see our schools being attacked on a weekly basis,” Nthekiso said.
He said the student movement would like to see the wardens in and around the vicinity of schools to ensure safety for learners and to protect the infrastructure.
He also lamented the fact that there was no visible presence of community police forums.
“One of the challenges that we have is that the Department of Education is not allocating enough budget towards school safety.
“If you look at schools around the province, they only have one security guard per shift. What would a security guard do to five criminals who pounce on a school?
“We were told that the security guards in these two schools were tied up,” he said.
He suggested that the department at least deploy four security guards per school and enough tools like panic buttons.
The Pretoria News contacted department spokesperson Steve Mabona but he had not commented by deadline.
Pretoria News