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News of the Day: March 8 2019

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Durban taxi crash driver fears for his life after deaths of three schoolgirls

Kamal Morgan

The driver of a taxi that killed three schoolgirls in Newlands East, Durban, on Wednesday fears that the community is baying for his blood.

Through his legal aid attorney, 32-year-old Siboniso Bethell Zwane informed the Ntuzuma Magistrate’s Court that he did not want his photograph published as he feared for his life.

“It is my instruction that he does not want his photograph published as he fears that his life will be in danger, taking into account the type of the offence that has happened and how people reacted. His life, the lives of his children and his family will be in jeopardy if his photo is published,” attorney Siphokuhle Thusi said.

Zwane’s address was also not read into the record for “safety reasons”.

He handed himself over to police on Wednesday after fleeing the bloodied scene where the bodies of the three girls lay on a main road in Newlands East. He abandoned the vehicle at the scene.

After the accident, angry community members blockaded Dumisani Makhaye Road, where the accident had occurred, demanding the identity of the driver from passing taxis. They later burnt tyres on the road.

Dressed in blue shorts, a blue-and-white striped golf-shirt and sandals, Zwane stood with folded arms in the dock during his first court appearance on Thursday.

Prosecutor Seema Reddy said it was alleged that on March 6, Zwane was driving a taxi that had “collided with several young children resulting in the deaths of three girls”.

“Another child is in a critical condition,” she said.

The charge sheet identified the victims as Ayanda Mtshali, Thima Ngiba, both 14, and 13-year-old Luyanda Ngubane.

Zwane is expected to apply for bail on March 13.

 

SA kids have to endure bullying way more than the rest of the world

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Boys from low-income areas are most at risk, a study has found
06 December 2018

Corey D Smith

One in six (17%) Grade 9 pupils report being exposed to some form of bullying almost weekly, says a study in the South African Journal of Education.

More than 12,000 boys and girls from about 300 fee-paying and non-fee-paying schools were surveyed by Trends in International Mathematics and Science, an annual global study that focuses on the changes in the education system over time.

Andrea Juan from Unisa

Researchers from the Human Sciences Research Council found that boys from low-income communities who attend low-income schools were at a greater risk of being bullies or victims of bullying.

Bullying took on many indirect and direct forms, but the two most common types reported were theft and being made fun of, which are considered direct bullying, the study said.

It found that pupils who felt they belonged, were accepted by peers and felt safe were less likely to be bullied.

The researchers saw this more commonly in schools with “healthy climates”. Criteria used to assess the health of a school’s climate were its emphasis on academic success, disciplinary problems, incidence of bullying and the challenges faced by teachers.

Researchers urged schools to create an environment that encourages positive interactions between peers and teachers.

But they acknowledged that the biggest challenge for low-income schools was managing scarce resources. “School leadership has to decide which interests to prioritise. As a result, intangible school factors often receive little to no attention,” the study said.

Academics led by Andrea Juan from the HSRC education and skills development research programme argued that the health of a school was a direct reflection of its community.

This story first appeared on TimesLive.co.za

If you’re a strict parent you might be raising a bully

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Authoritarian parenting is associated with traditional bullying and cyberbullying, researchers reveal

Natalie Elliott

A study by University of South Africa academics Catherine Govender and Kelly Young found that authoritarian parenting, which they defined as a “rigid, repressed, non-negotiable, power-oriented and hierarchical”, is associated with traditional bullying and cyberbullying.

CO-AUTHOR Catherine Govender of Unisa.

Reporting on their work in The South African Journal of Education, the authors said children subjected to the kind of power imbalance found in such families were more likely to act aggressively towards their peers.

Other studies had found that when children felt their parents were insensitive to their own pain, they showed no empathy to those they deemed weaker than them, Govender and Young noted.

“The elements of vertical individualism, especially the power imbalance, prompt individuals to perpetrate acts of peer aggression, such as bullying,” they said.

Bullying is most common between the ages of 11 and 13 (grades 6 and 7). Primary school pupils are more likely to be bullies than high school pupils are.

Nearly a third of the 272 children in the study, from four primary schools in Benoni, Gauteng, had bullied someone in a traditional sense at least once in the previous year, with just under 2% of these being regular bullies.

Cyberbullying was not as frequent, but the researchers said the nature of shared technology meant even a single instance of cyberbullying could snowball out of control.

While Grade 6 children are the more likely culprits of traditional forms of bullying, such as aggressiveness, cyberbullying is more of a Grade 7 phenomenon.

Cyberstalking and online harassment are both perpetrated by 13-year-olds who for the first time are allowed on Facebook and Twitter.

Older pupils are more likely to have “cellphones, access to the internet, knowledge of current apps and instant messaging services”, the study said.

Govender and Young said the long-term consequences of bullying also had negative effects on the economy, with a raised likelihood of landing up in jail or unemployed later in life.

‘Everything happens in school toilets’, and kids are terrified

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Toilets are out of sight of teachers, giving free rein to bullies in SA schools

Francine Barchett

Pupils in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) have described the daily fear they experience when they have to use their school toilets.

“Everything happens in the toilets,” said a Grade 10 boy at the no-fee school. “Like when you walk in, they close you in and mug you and do whatever they want. It is worse when they have a gun.”

His and other pupils’ experiences at an unidentified school in the KwaMashu area were described in a South African Journal of Education study looking at the risk of bullying they faced.

Ndumiso Daluxolo Ngidi from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Image: UKZN

Researchers Ndumiso Daluxolo Ngidi and Relebohile Moletsane, from the University of KZN, found that pupils feared muggings, sexual violence and physical assault in the toilets.

The fact that the toilets were out of sight of teachers left the victims “at the mercy of the bullies and perpetrators of violence”, they said.

“Sometimes school is fun, but it is mostly dangerous,” a Grade 9 girl reported. “As I was washing my face in the toilet a boy came in and tried to bully me.”

She escaped after a cleaner came in and told the boy to leave, but others were not so lucky.

One boy said he had repeatedly been abused by bullies in the toilet. “They always outnumber you and they beat you up,” he said. “I have never even tried to fight back; I will never try.”

While bullies often worked in groups around the toilet, some respondents said individual bullies, who were either older or stronger than them, harassed them for sexual favours.

A Grade 8 girl said: “A girl came to me and harassed me and wanted to force me to love her, but I told her that I don’t do girls.”

Another girl in Grade 10 recounted when “guys came from behind me and choked me. One of them put a hand on my breast.” One of the boys, she said, was in her class.

Guys came from behind me and choked me. One of them put a hand on my breast.
Many of the study participants reported that alcohol, cannabis and other drugs were dealt at the toilets, and told of dire consequences for anyone who tried to tell teachers or the principal.

“It is not easy to scream or shout for help because they scare you with something [a weapon] and toilets are far, and nobody will hear you,” one respondent said.

Many victims said the torment did not stop at the toilet door. They also faced bullies as they walked to and from school, they said.

“I find school boring,” one of the girls said. “Not that I hate it, but because all these things hurt me. These people are feared even by teachers, so we are not safe.”

The study’s authors said school toilets needed to be made safer, which could involve moving them to a location where teachers could monitor them more effectively.

This story first appeared on TimesLive.co.za. 

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