Pubdate: Thu, 20 Jul 2006
Source: City Press (South Africa)
Copyright: 2006 City Press
Contact:  http://www.news24.com/City-Press/Home/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2963

SA SCHOOLS 'BREED VIOLENCE'

Durban - South Africa's education system has been blamed for school 
violence that has left one pupil dead and another with multiple skull 
fractures.

A sense of spirituality and humanity was lacking in South Africa's 
educational system, said a Durban-based anti-drug forum on Wednesday.

Teachers lacked empathy. The educational system needed to stop 
churning out workers, said forum chairperson Sam Pillay.

A 16-year-old boy died when he was taken off life-support machines 
after being injured in a fist-fight on the South Coast on Saturday.

In North West, a Rustenburg matric pupil had to undergo surgery on 
Wednesday after being assaulted by a fellow pupil on Monday, Beeld reported.

Need to develop personalities

Despite life-orientation programmes in schools, there were still 
pregnancies, suicides and violence, "and at alarming proportions 
too", said Pillay.

"Western countries are educating kids for careers and are forgetting 
that these are just children.

"They (Western society) are not engaging their hearts and minds. What 
about developing their personalities?"

Children loved attending school in India where pupils were taught 
basic yoga, about themselves, given guidance counselling and taught 
how to live at peace with other cultures, religions, and mindsets.

Use of these principles had encouraged 3 300 pupils to voluntarily 
attend classes at his drug rehabilitation centre in Chatsworth in the 
past year, he said.

The KwaZulu-Natal school attack was "a sad indictment of the values 
of society and the discipline in schools", added National 
Professional Teachers' Association of SA (Naptosa) president Dave Balt.

Decline in values

"Clearly, this is not a problem that can be solved by parents or 
teachers on their own.

"The problem clearly runs far deeper than that which happens in 
schools. It is a symptom of a decline in the values entrenched in 
society at large."

He blamed escalating violence in schools on, among other things, the 
influence of violence on television, easy accessibility to drugs in 
schools, an increase in the number of Aids orphans and child headed 
households, poverty and overcrowded classrooms. 
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