04 May 2014

Mogoditshane residents on Wednesday, April 30 heard about satanic acts practiced by some students at Mogoditshane Senior Secondary school.

The School Head, Ms Obusitswe Otlhageng, said during a kgotla meeting addressed by the Assistant Minister of Education and Skills Development, Mr Patrick Masimolole, in his Mogoditshane constituency that some students were caught cutting their bodies, squeezing out their own blood into a jug and drinking it.

Ms Otlhageng appealed to Mogoditshane residents to advise the school’s management on this matter, especially that corporal punishment had been curtailed because of its negative consequences.

Commenting on the matter, parents expressed concern about the growing acts of Satanism in schools; they said it was disheartening to hear that the devil’s work was going on in their school.

Parents called onto everyone to play a parental role to every child in order to address challenges such as this one.

They also pointed out that the satanic acts were happening because some parents neglected parenthood.

Another contributory factor was that some parents sold drugs and alcohol to students.

However, some parents advised that corporal punishment should not be applied to students who practice Satanism because it was not a solution since it is a spiritual matter.

They shifted the blame to churches that initiate school children into the kingdom of darkness.Responding to parents’ comments,Ms Otlhageng said parents were angry because they neither visited schools nor attended PTA meetings to keep abreast with what was going on at school.

She however noted that Mogoditshane Senior School was performing well academically. She said the school’s first results placed it at number 20 but last year, the school scooped position five nationwide.

Dikgosana proposed to form a committee that will deal with issues affecting Mogoditshane at large.

For his part, Assistant Minister Masimolole said community leaders such as dikgosi and parents should visit schools frequently to help teachers deal with students’ deviance.

He warned that problems in schools would not be solved if parents did not work with teachers.

Mr Masimolole said the Mogoditshane Police Station was overwhelmed because it also covered neighbouring villages. He said he once suggested that community clusters should be formed but that never happened. ENDS