SOUTH Africa reported 548 cases of bullying in schools since January, prompting the Minister of Basic Education to unveil new initiatives aimed at combating this growing issue.
Twenty-nine cases were reported in KwaZulu-Natal, 23 in Gauteng and 305 in Limpopo.
These shocking statistics were released last week by the Minister of Basic Education, Siviwe Gwarube, in a parliamentary response to Lorato Florence Tito-Duba, a member of the National Assembly for the Economic Freedom Fighter (EFF).
Education experts said bullying was an age-old problem and warned it was “becoming more complex in the age of technology”.
In response to Tito-Dube’s question about the number of cases since the start of 2025 school year and the implementation of programmes the Department of Basic Education (DBE) had rolled out to curb bullying, Gwarube said they had developed the National School Safety Framework (NSSF). This, she said, was a guideline in addressing all forms of violent incidents at schools, including bullying.
According to the statistics, the Eastern Cape had 68 cases of bullying, the Free State one, Mpumalanga 26, Northern Cape 7, North West province 78, and the Western Cape 11.
Gwarube said the NSSF empowered schools to identify and manage all safety threats and to establish safety committees comprising stakeholders such as teachers, police officers and school governing body members.
“Furthermore, the NSSF also empowers schools to develop incident reporting mechanisms, establish collaborations with external stakeholders, such as the police, the Department of Social Development (DSD) and civil society organisations. They develop school safety plans and policies to respond to safety challenges.
“The DBE had also developed the ‘Addressing Bullying in Schools’ manual. This manual assists schools to identify different types of bullying and develop anti-bullying policies in schools to prevent and manage bullying. We are in the process of updating this manual for release by June 2025,” she added.
In line with the South African Schools Act, Gwarube said the School Governing Bodies (SGBs) of public schools were required to develop and adopt codes of conduct for pupils in consultation with parents, teachers and, where appropriate, pupils.
“The codes of conduct for pupils stipulate the rules of pupil behaviour in schools; the disciplinary procedures to be undertaken after incidents of contravention are reported; and sanctions that may be imposed against pupils found guilty of contravening the applicable code of conduct.
“We have also established protocols with police to address crime and violence in schools. The protocol has enabled all schools to be linked to their local police stations, and for police to conduct searches and seizures in schools and conduct crime awareness and bullying campaigns in schools.
“Regularly, schools work with police and local community police forums and social workers to address violence-related issues in schools.
“The various education districts in collaboration with civil society organisations conduct regular awareness raising interventions that explicitly advocate for the prevention of violence in schools. These provincially led programmes include school assembly talks and public debates and dialogues among learners. The DBE monitors these awareness programmes through the District Monitoring of School Safety programmes annually.
“The DBE continues to implement the life skills and life orientation curriculum, which is the main lever for preventing violence in schools among pupils. We implement this curriculum and assessment policy statement annually and it covers violence related topics like bullying, drugs and substance abuse, gender-based violence and teenage pregnancy.
“Referral systems were established by schools through the School-Based-Support Teams in referring victims or perpetrators of bullying to social workers or pupil-support agents or psychologists to receive the necessary counselling services,” Gwarube added.
Labby Ramrathan, a UKZN education expert, said: “Bullying is an age-old phenomenon and despite efforts to stem its prevalence in school and elsewhere, it will continue to exist. The challenge is that the definition of bullying is expanding and becoming even more complex in the age of digital technology.
“On-going education on bullying is needed both for the pupils and parents. We also need to begin a categorisation process for bullying… something like a bullying spectrum where severe cases of bullying are severely engaged with by external (from school) intervention.
"Parents must pay for this, so that bullying pegged lower in the spectrum would be addressed with parents. It is a worrying trend as bullying also leads to more violent behaviours and often the person being bullied takes extreme reactions leading to unintended consequences,” he said.