A twelve-year-old boy comes from a broken home. His father, with whom he enjoyed an especially close relationship, died two years ago. His mother remarried soon after that but he could never achieve with his stepfather, the easy rapport he had with his biological dad. Distressed by the lack of love and attention he received at home, he sought to replace it with a cocktail of violence, drugs and extortion and earn the fear, if not respect, of his peers.

This scenario is disturbingly common among pupils and in schools across the country. In the ugly sprawl of two-tone semi-detached homes and rutted unnamed single-track byways that are Phoenix, north of Durban, the problem has reached crisis point. Police estimate that more than R50 000 in Mandrax, dagga, and harder drugs like crack cocaine and heroin, changes hands in the 69 schools in the district. Knock-on effects – violence, teen pregnancies, prostitution, theft and alcoholism are on the rise in primary and secondary schools alike. America is under siege from gun-wielding perverts in tie and blazer; how long before South African child soldiers are firing away indiscriminately in classrooms?

Not long, if the comments of Syed Rajack, chairman of the KZN Parents’ Association, are anything to go by. He likened the spate of violent and drug-related school incidents to a disease equal to the HIV-Aids pandemic.

“It is widespread. The responsibility lies entirely with the parents. Education is not an excuse to be negligent and lay the blame elsewhere when their children become delinquents and miscreants.

“At the same time, the police have not focused on crime intelligence and cleaned up the drug pigs’ mess. High levels of police corruption have been noted in KZN. These people are getting rich on the backs of our children and destroying generations. Unless something is done in a short space of time, our kids will find themselves either dead or in mental institutions,” he said.

Rajack had some advice for parents concerned enough to want to help their children escape a cruel fate.

“Parents need to be vigilant and identify the telltale signs of drug abuse – lying, cheating, fake illnesses and stealing. I cannot understand parents who are prepared to drop off their 13-year-olds at nightclubs to have a few hours free. Are they really parents?” he asked.

Supt Education Management on the Phoenix North circuit Mark Munsami called schools in 2007 “more like prisons than educational institutions”.

Violence, stealing, extortion, and drug abuse are tears in the social fabric. The increase in single parent homes and the pressures of supporting a family have filtered down to younger generations. Peer pressure to do the in-thing and a desperate longing for love and attention force the pupil to seek recognition in the wrong ways. “These young girls go gah-gah over taxi drivers because they can flash a bit of cash and give them some attention. They also pick up habits and adopt violent attitudes from their parents very easily. Children are in crisis and trapped in a vicious cycle,” he said.

He illustrated his view that ill-discipline was as old as school itself with an anecdote from the early days of his long career in education.

“It was ten years into my career in 1984. I was head of department at a school in a notoriously rough area. A pupil who arrived late swore at the principal for reprimanding him, and did the same to me when I questioned his behaviour. I put my bag down and chased the boy through the flats near the school for about 2km, followed by the principal in his car. Of course I was much fitter then. Eventually he stopped, panting, and picked up a boulder knowing there was no getting away from me. I looked him in the eye and asked him to make good use of his weapon because if he didn’t, he was in trouble. Defeated, he dropped the rock. I gave him a sound thrashing before we bundled him into the car and called in his parents.”

Munsami cited a combination of factors in his explanation of the crisis.

“I’m not saying teachers are angels. They live in the same society as the rest of us. In fact they are ‘in loco parentis’, not just disseminating information but changing mindsets and imparting values. It is so difficult when bad examples abound in the highest levels of society and when pupils are bombarded with explicit images through the media. Parents dump their rebellious children on the teachers. It is no easy task dealing with 45 kids with various social backgrounds. We just can’t manage. Parents expect way too much from us. Children are being turned into adults at a really young age. New legislation that permits abortion for twelve-year-old girls and lowers the age of consent only enforces this. Parental authority has been eroded with the democratic emphasis on children’s rights, children’s courts and so on. In the old days we never had that problem. A father could enforce his decision with a slap,” said Munsami.

Munsami said the changing racial composition of the pupil body had, contrary to popular belief, not impacted greatly on school crimes.

“It is our Indian kids that are causing the problem. The black pupils are generally hungry for knowledge. Their parents spend lots of money getting their children to school each day from their homes in outlying areas. They are at a disadvantage because English is their second language. They are labelled because of their difficulties adapting, not because of any violent tendencies,” he said.

Spokesperson for the KZN Department of Education, Christi Naude said while the Department’s core function was teaching and learning, they were doing their utmost to address the massive infrastructure backlog they were faced with when coming into power, and were prioritising safety in schools.

“Violence and crime is societal in nature. It spills into the schools from the outside. Schools are microcosms of society. We are not policemen but we recognise that there is a problem and are duly concerned. We are holding a huge summit in October on safety, security and employing a holistic approach to substance abuse in schools. The department of education can’t deal with this alone. We need the input of all stakeholders including parents. We have prioritised fencing, which many schools still don’t have. In 2003 we identified the need for 14 000 classrooms. Of course there are budgetary constraints and classrooms come before security measures,” said Naude.

She added that schools were urged to work closely with the SAPS and align themselves with the local police station.

A Phoenix Child Welfare social worker disputed the idea that social ills were entirely to blame.

“We can hold preventative workshops until we are blue in the face, but in the end it is down to the individual and good choices. It’s the only way we can explain how two children from similar backgrounds can have completely different reactions to a stimulus. We need to internalise these values to find peace of soul,” she said.

Insp Ramesh Ganesh heads the Phoenix SAPS School Unit. The unit’s mandate is to liaise with principals and parents, facilitating workshops and enforcing security regulations such as the compulsory introduction of anti-drug and weapon signage.

“The issue is definitely more serious today, than in my day. Apart from the drug mules and couriers, the house party phenomenon has been causing us more than a little concern. The kids decide to bunk school and meet at a house. There they have their cigarettes, alcohol, pornography and sex. And it happens across the board. We had a situation with a principal’s daughter just recently,” said Ganesh.

Westham Secondary is as eerie and foreboding as the reputation it has for every type of pupil vice. At midday, the property is deathly silent and the red brick walls rage menacingly against the cobalt horizon. The caustic-tongued secretary wards away requests to see the principal or his deputy, saying that she does not know their whereabouts or when they will be returning. Many other centres of education display, through graffiti emblazoned walls and broken windows, the scarce resources and even scarcer discipline.

Ramesh Deepnarain is the principal of Palmview Secondary. The dapper man with the earrings and film star looks belies a hardline commitment to his passion for education. His zero tolerance policy has paid handsome dividends: Palmview has had a 100% matric pass rate for the past three years and his infringement statistics have more zeros than Robert Mugabe’s bank balance.

“When I identify a problem I nip it in the bud. There is no nonsense in the classrooms here. No pupil will stand up to a teacher under my watch. I realised that I had to employ a pro-active approach. It has been a community partnership and a real team effort. There is always a teacher on duty during breaks, we put up boundary fencing and barbed wire to cut off access to the neighbouring park, a hive of illegal activity. We cite anti-tobacco legislation and call in the police after giving the pupil one chance to redeem themselves,” he explained.

The school was the centre of a huge controversy when CCTV cameras were introduced to watch over the 950 pupils and identify hotspots. With all the security measures, gaining access even as a visitor is no mean feat, and the edifice looks for all the world like some medieval asylum. Deepnarain’s decision to implement Big Brother mechanisms seems to have been vindicated, with several schools in the Western Cape following suit.

Two schoolboys are making their way home a couple of hours before the last bell.

One says getting hold of drugs is as simple as buying a popsicle in most schools.

“You can get anything you want if you know who to ask. And fighting happens in all schools. We don’t have too many stabbings. I’d rather be shot than stabbed,” he said.

“You might get hit over the head with a golf stick though,” his friend quips.

• Ebrahim Moolla is business editor of Primedia Online.