NEWLY APPOINTED Gauteng education MEC Matome Chiloane says he wants police officers stationed outside every school in the province after a parent was killed outside a primary school in Soweto.
Eugene Tshililo was shot dead outside the Faranani Primary School in Protea Glen on Tuesday as he tried to stop an attempted hijacking.
A group of unknown suspects attempted to hijack a scholar transport vehicle outside the school at 2pm.
Visiting the school on Wednesday, Chiloane stressed the need for community safety interventions, calling for increased police visibility at schools.
He said his department would request that police officers be placed outside schools in the morning and afternoon.
“The premier announced that they will be recruiting 6,000 new police officers. … we will be requesting that schools should be guarded by police officials as part of the programme.
“We want the officers to be stationed at schools in the morning and in the afternoon.”
Chiloane said there was no police station near the primary school.
“We have picked up that in this area there is no police station nearby. That is a matter that we will take up with the relevant authority, but what we will also be requesting is that, as and when the safety department deploys mobile police stations, those stations be near schools.”
He expressed his condolences to the victim’s family and indicated that counselling would be provided to those who had witnessed the incident.
“I can imagine the pain and the trauma of [the victim’s] child to know that their father had come to pick them up and had passed on. That’s a trauma of a lifetime, so we will go to the family and support.
“We have already dispatched the psychosocial unit to the school to assist all the learners and also we have dispatched a wellness [team] to assist the educators because we know the educators might not be feeling safe at the moment,” said Chiloane.
Image (New GP MEC for education Matome Chiloane visited the family of deceased in Protea Glen, Soweto).
