Gauteng Education MEC Matome Chiloane has revealed how teachers at the Germiston school where a Grade 6 learner allegedly shot the school principal had flagged the 13-year-old’s poor performance recently, leading to a meeting at the school with the parents before the shooting incident last week.
Chiloane was speaking on Monday following a visit at Primrose Primary School in Germiston.
According to the MEC, after the meeting, teachers noticed that his performance was not improving and they told him to call his parents.
Teachers also wanted to ask the parents why they had not signed his homework book for five weeks.
However, the boy apparently failed to tell his parents that they had to be at school last Friday.
Chilaone said this might have been caused by fear as he knew that he was going to be punished. He said the boy’s parents were hitting him instead of supporting him.
“I don’t have specifics of what kind of punishment but we can assume that there was a bit of abuse taking place... The school has done its part in terms of following up and protecting the child, but on the parents side, the support has been minimal,” he said.
Matome said it was imperative for parents to communicate with teachers because they have created WhatsApp groups to make communication easier.
“Parents need to play their part, I mean if a child takes a gun and you see the gun is missing, you need to play your part,” he said.
Upon interviewing the learners, Chiloane said it was revealed that the boy had planned to shoot his teacher, the principal and the deputy principal.
“The people that were targeted were the class teacher, the deputy principal and the principal, as according to the child, these were three people giving him problems at school as they are notifying the parents,” he said.
Meanwhile,the child is set to appear before court this week while his father has since been arrested and is expected to also appear before the court for child negligence.
The principal is still recovering from the gunshot wound in hospital.
IOL News