Twenty percent of teachers in South African schools think their schools are violent places where the learners and their colleagues are armed, The Times reported on Thursday.

A survey reportedly conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council with the Department of Education released the findings this week, and surveyed 20,000 teachers at 1,380 schools across the country.

According to The Times, about 17 percent of teacher reported fights involving weapons at school, and 13% think there are gangs operating at their school.

The executive director of the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA told The Times that a principal in Lavender Hill in the Western Cape was recently stabbed by a parent, who later returned to school to “finish him off”.

The South African Democratic Teachers Union told The Times that teachers felt unsafe at school.

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