Education

(a-d) My department has informed me of the following:
We can infer that the monthly meetings he has referred to are the recurring monthly
ProvJoints Priority Committee Anti-Gang Implementation Plan or “AGIP” meetings,
which are led by the Department of Police Oversight and Community Safety.
These meetings have been held monthly since 2017.
The monthly AGIP meeting is a multi-disciplinary engagement involving the Anti-Gang
Unit, the Department of Police Oversight and Community Safety, the Western Cape
Education Department (WCED), the Provincial Departments of Social Development,
Cultural Affairs and Sport, Agriculture, Economic Development and Tourism,
Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, and the Provincial Treasury, SAPS,
the National Prosecuting Agency, the national Department of Justice and
Constitutional Development, the national Department of Correctional Services, and
the City of Cape Town. These departments and agencies all work together under the
National Anti-Gangsterism Strategy and the Provincial Anti-Gang Intervention Plan.
In terms what has been put in place as part of these collaborative meetings:
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• A Safety and Security Resilience Scorecard has been developed jointly by the
WCED and the Department of Police Oversight and Community Safety, in
consultation with SAPS, to assess risk levels and inform targeted deployment of
safety resources at schools.
The tool also provides valuable management information on enhanced safety
policies required to improve safety at each school.
• We also have implemented targeted interventions to improve learner
attendance at school, to reduce the number of learners out of school and at
risk of gang involvement. The aim is to reduce absenteeism and truancy, but
also to re-integrate truant learners by conducting home visits and advocating
the benefits of attending school consistently to matric.
• We work together on the development of safety plans and functional safety
committees at individual schools, as well as targeted funding for security
infrastructure to high-risk schools.
• We collaboration on After School and Holiday Programmes, as well as
behavioural and training interventions at schools.
Interventions we have implemented cooperatively with SAPS and other
departments include:
o Programmes to address gang and drug issues in schools;
o Training teachers on random drug testing and related programmes;
o Training teachers on searches and seizures;
o Leadership training;
o Training in creative and constructive approaches to conflict resolution;
o Peer mediation;
o Anti-bullying initiatives;
o Cadets and Marching initiatives which reinforce positive behaviour and
discipline;
o Active involvement in diversion programs involving sports, arts and culture;
o Values initiatives;
o Life skills for learners at risk of problem behaviour to prevent possible
problems in advance; and
o Interventions to reduce physical and emotional abuse.
These are not the only measures we have in place to address safety issues in our
schools that are related to gang violence. Additional measures include collaboration
with the City of Cape Town on the School Resource Officer programme, working with
SAPS for search and seizure operations, the Safe Schools Call Centre, protocols for
dealing with safety and security incidents, and district-based psychosocial support
when such incidents occur.