By Ndumiso Daluxolo Ngidi and Melusi Andile Dlamini
Violence among learners in South African schools is a pressing concern. The minister of basic education told parliament in 2025 that hundreds of bullying cases had been reported in the first few weeks of the year. Since then, a series of alarming incidents have further drawn public attention.
While these occurrences mirror the high rates of violence in the country, they are also symptoms of systemic challenges within South African schools.
In 2015 the government introduced the National School Safety Framework to set minimum standards of safety and help schools understand and meet their responsibilities. It noted “the relationship between violence and other ecological factors relating to safe and caring schools by locating the school within its broader community”.
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