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File image: Classroom.
Dagga was amongst the drugs found at Masitakhe Secondary School, in Matsulu, in Mpumalanga.
This as the Department of Community Safety, Security and Liaison, the South African Police Service (SAPS), the Department of Correctional Services and other stakeholders raided the school.
The school is reported to be one of the most notorious in the Matsulu area for illicit behaviour.
Learning and teaching was halted while the search and seizure operation was conducted at the secondary school. All learners were searched. Some of them welcomed the operation.
One of the learners told us: “They come with knives at school, dangerous weapons, because they fight each and every Friday. They communicate with other schools and they meet here at our school and fight. Police must come each and every Friday and search everyone and make sure no one passes with illegal things in our schools.”
Another learner says, “the learners come to school with drugs like weed, marijuana, alcohol and sometimes cigarettes. I think the police should come to school regularly and check the learners, search them because I think it will put a stop to wrong behaviour, and I think the school will improve a lot in terms of the drugs they bring onto school premises or any other wrongdoing.”
The School Governing Body hopes this initiative will continue as some of the learners at the school are regarded as problematic.
The MEC for Community Safety, Security and Liaison, Jackie Macie says it was evident the learners were tipped off about the raid. He urged community members to work with law enforcement to curb social ills at schools.
Macie adds, ‘We want to call on the community, particularly those who are working with us, community policing forums and other stakeholders, to say when they know that there is this operation. There is no need to inform the school, there are kids who assisted us with this information, where they buy this weed and marijuana, and the police are going to search households that have been identified.”
The programme is aimed at making schools safer and will continue throughout the Province.
Mpumalanga SAPS, MEC conduct school raid in Matsulu area:
