The Committee of Inquiry into events leading to the fatal stabbing of Athlone learner, Marawaan Blankenberg, on Friday, 24 February 2005 has submitted its findings and recommendations to the Premier.

The Premier asked the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) to appoint the committee to investigate these events, as well the broader context in which the attack took place.

Marawaan, 15, was a learner at the Ned Doman High School in Athlone. He died after he and other learners allegedly attacked a group of learners on their way home from school, apparently after an altercation at the school earlier in the day.

The committee said that the attack and other incidents reflected broader issues, including a culture of violence in many communities and challenges facing schools that have seen significant changes in their learner compositions in recent years.

The Premier asker the committee to investigate:

• The incident that happened at Ned Doman High School on 24 February 2005;
• How other schools are coping with changes in learner composition; and
• How other schools are coping with rising levels of violence in schools.

The four-person committee, chaired by former school principal, Mr Eddie Snyders, made various recommendations on how the province should respond to the challenges identified in the report.

The committee found that the immediate cause of the incident was an altercation between two learners, who are in Grades 9 and 11 respectively.

On 24 February, a teacher at Ned Doman sent the Grade 11 learner to ask a noisy class next to his to be quiet. The class included the Grade 9 learner, who had previously fought with the older boy. The boys argued, which led to a fight spurred on by other learners.

A teacher was not present in the Grade 9 class at the time, because she had kept another class behind for a few minutes to complete work, following delays due to disciplinary problems in the class.

A teacher who intervened in the altercation took the boys to the principal’s office, where they apologized and shook hands after being asked to do so by the principal.

Marawaan died later that afternoon, after he and some friends allegedly attacked a group of learners while on their way home from school. The committee found that the two incidents were related, but did not investigate the stabbing incident itself because this is a subject of a police investigation.

Emotions ran very high in the community after the event. The principal and staff did not attend the funeral because they feared for their safety.

The committee found that there had been incidents of violence at the school in the past. Disciplinary measures varied from detention, community service and conflict resolutions programmes run by the principal.

The committee found that the history and background of the school had had an impact on relationships between learners. The school is physically removed from the communities it serves.

"Learners come from communities where poverty, violence, family disintegration and the effects of the destruction of the general social fabric are part of their daily experience," the report says. "Children growing up in these conditions generally experience difficulty in establishing sound relationships."

About 50% of the learners are from coloured communities where strong feelings prevail that the government promotes African interests at their cost. Learners from different backgrounds met for the first time at the school, in a situation where there is high potential for conflict.

None of the teachers had attended diversity training. The WCED, police, Social Services, and local community organizations had various programmes in place to deal with immediate and medium-term issues, but they needed proper integration and coordination.

The committee also investigated conditions at a representative sample of seven other schools in the vicinity.

The committee found that in general, staff and governing bodies did not reflect the learner composition, African learners formed a very small minority in these schools, and two former Cape Education Department schools had become de facto "coloured", with white learners leaving the schools.

Three of the seven principals said that "normal conflict and violence between learners seemingly always plays itself out along racial lines".

The committee submitted recommendations aimed specifically at Ned Doman, as well as how to manage challenges brought about by diverse learner composition at schools in general in the Western Cape.

The committee found that the incident had been a traumatic experience for the school community. The report recommends a multi-dimensional intervention focusing on trauma counseling, anger management, conflict resolution, diversity, anti-racism and learner discipline.

The committee has also recommended a wide-ranging whole school development programme that would look at all aspects of school improvement.

Programmes for schools in general should include a reviewing school ethos, through a consultative process, as well as training in diversity management, anti-discrimination and conflict resolution, and how to address prejudice.

Schools should look at language acquisition, especially isiXhosa, language support in English, literacy and content selection. Schools needed guidelines on representation. Most schools had successfully introduced new sports codes, the committee said.

The committee made a number of recommendations on how to address racism and the challenges brought about by a diverse learner composition.

• The committee recommended that the provincial government establish a provincial consultative body representing all role players in education to develop a complete strategy to address the challenges of diversity and racism in education.

The body should monitor existing policies and practices, propose new policies, identify ways of ensuring representivity on school structures, and recommend guidelines on how to address racism, and ensure the reflection of diversity in curricula, learning materials and teaching practice.

The body would also provide recommendations for anti-racism and diversity management training and education of learners, teachers and personnel in education departments.

• The provincial government should establish regional networks that would move beyond school clusters and include representatives from Education Management and Development Centres, schools in a particular area, police, Social Services and community organizations and workers.

These networks would identify needs and help to develop, implement, monitor and evaluate multi-pronged strategies for specific contexts.

• Each school should develop anti-discrimination policies, allowing for the development of management capacity, staff, curriculum and the organization as a whole. It should guide a review of admission policies, the relationship between the school and the community, and pro-actively encourage the involvement of black parents in governing bodies and school activities.

The committee said that schools could not be expected to address the issue of violence alone, given the varied reasons for a culture of violence in many communities, and called urgently for a multi-dimensional, multi-functional approach.

"With the erosion already being in an advanced state, we seriously recommend very high-level political intervention, the regulation of provincial and regional coordinating structures that will be responsible for the integration (and ‘packaging’) of available services, design and delivery, monitoring, ongoing support and evaluation."

The committee recommended locating the provincial structure in the Premier’s Office to facilitate cooperation by different state departments.

In addition to the provincial structure, the committee recommended efforts to ensure appropriate local and regional interventions, family support services, secure and functional schools, increasing learners’ self-esteem, and reducing drug and alcohol abuse.