A13-year-old Primerose Primary School learner who reportedly shot his Principal on Friday the 16th of February 2024, had allegedly planned to shoot three of his educators with a gun understood to belong to his father.
This was revealed in a report that Gauteng Department of Education MEC Matome Chiloane obtained from the school which stated that the learner told his friends in a Whatsapp group chat, that he wants to shoot three of the school’s staff members.
The MEC also confirmed that the principal is recovering in hospital after being hit by one of the three shots that were fired at him and there are uncertainties on whether he would want to go back into the education space.
“The incident was a total shock to the department, especially the detailing of the gruesome intentions of the child. After interviewing his friends, they confirmed that this has been planned for a while. It’s sad that neither the educators at school nor his parents picked it up,” Chiloane said.
The school’s report of the incident also states that the learner confessed after being apprehended, that his intentions were to shoot three staff members- the Principal, Deputy Principal and his class teacher.
Chiloane also revealed that the report states how troublesome the learner had been. It revealed that the learner’s homework was not signed by the parents as per the schools’ requirements for five weeks and that the school intervened through a meeting which was held with his parents last month. The report also mentions how the learner was falling behind with school work and not performing well.
“Following the said meeting, apparently, the child got home and was punished by the parents. I do not have the specifics of the kind of punishment, but we can assume that perhaps there was a bit of abuse taking place that perhaps could’ve driven the learner’s motive saying that he was punished because the teacher, Principal and Deputy Principal called his parents to the school,” Chiloane added.
The gun in question is said to belong to the learner’s father and as the owner, he spent the weekend in jail on charges of negligence. Chiloane explained that both the father and the learner appeared in court today, Monday 19 February, and the magistrate will make a decision on whether or not the child goes to a juvenile prison. If not, the child will undergo a rehabilitation process before being reintroduced to the school system. Chiloane added that this process is very important from the department’s side because they have seen from research how such learners tend to have a repetitive behavior.