{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,22]],"date-time":"2026-04-22T20:32:39Z","timestamp":1776889959156,"version":"3.51.2"},"update-to":[{"DOI":"10.12688\/gatesopenres.13328.1","type":"new_version","label":"New version","source":"publisher","updated":{"date-parts":[[2024,2,19]],"date-time":"2024-02-19T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1708300800000}},{"DOI":"10.12688\/gatesopenres.13328.2","type":"new_version","label":"New version","source":"publisher","updated":{"date-parts":[[2024,2,19]],"date-time":"2024-02-19T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1708300800000}}],"reference-count":67,"publisher":"F1000 Research Ltd","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,2,19]],"date-time":"2024-02-19T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1708300800000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000865","name":"Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["INV-007156"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["INV-007156"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000865","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["gatesopenresearch.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Gates Open Res"],"abstract":"<ns4:p>Background Despite progressive policies and frameworks on school safety by the Department of Basic Education, safety remains a concern in South African schools. Methods A cross-sectional descriptive design was employed using the National School Safety Framework (NSSF) 152-question learner survey, exploring perceptions and experiences pertaining to eight safety domains: dangerous objects, drugs and alcohol, bullying, verbal abuse, physical violence, discrimination, sexual violence, and journey to and from school. Grade 9-11 learners from 15 government-funded high schools in the Girls Achieve Power trial in Khayelitsha, Soweto, and Thembisa townships were surveyed (March 2018 - April 2019), sampling 10% of the school population. Data analysis included Principal Component Analysis (PCA), reducing correlated variables into fewer questions, then analysis on a scree plot by calculating eigenvalues; repeated PCA with those that had a minimum eigenvalue of 1 and Cronbach Alpha test for internal reliability. Eleven composite variables were included in the final analysis. Results In total, 1034 learners completed the NSSF learner survey; 52.9% were female and the mean age was 16 years (SD=1.36). Results show statistically significant associations between four of the 11 composite variables in relation to sex. Over half (55%) of males have experienced peer provocation and relational aggression (p&lt;0.001). Fifty-eight percent of females reported feeling unsafe on their way to and from school (p&lt;0.003). Over half of males reported that their school was not effective in enforcing discipline (p=0.002) while 58% of females noted they could comfortably report any form of experienced or witnessed violence at school, to their educators (p&lt;0.000). Conclusions Violence continues to be a concern in South African schools. Interventions should work across the ecological model to effectively prevent and reduce violence at school and community levels. Strengthened NSSF implementation is critical to achieving this. We recommend NSSF learner survey adaptations to increase utility and implementation.<\/ns4:p>","DOI":"10.12688\/gatesopenres.13328.3","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,2,19]],"date-time":"2024-02-19T06:25:08Z","timestamp":1708323908000},"page":"6","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.12688\/gatesopenres.crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Learner experiences of safety at public high schools in three South African townships: Baseline findings from the National School Safety Framework learner surveys"],"prefix":"10.12688","volume":"6","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5545-7030","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Alison","family":"Kutywayo","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Khuthala","family":"Mabetha","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7197-9426","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Nicolette P.","family":"Naidoo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Tshepo","family":"Mahuma","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Paseka","family":"Njobe","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1324-5077","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ronelle","family":"Hlongwane","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7039-1949","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Saiqa","family":"Mullick","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"2560","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,2,19]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref-1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1431","DOI":"10.3390\/ijerph14111431","article-title":"The Economic 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\n<i>Posted: 11 Oct 2023<\/i>; Thank you for the review of this manuscript. We appreciate your feedback.&nbsp; We have amended Table 1 and 2, (previously labelled 2 and 3) to ensure they now include an ''overall'' column. The descriptive write up (Results) now includes the overall sample size before presenting sex differences.","URL":"https:\/\/gatesopenresearch.org\/articles\/6-6\/v3#referee-comment-3643","order":2,"name":"referee-comment-3643","label":"Referee Comment","group":{"name":"article-reports","label":"Article Reports"}},{"value":"10.21956\/gatesopenres.16277.r35656, Evi Widowati, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Semarang, Central Java, 21 Dec 2023, version 2, indexed","URL":"https:\/\/gatesopenresearch.org\/articles\/6-6\/v2#referee-response-35656","order":3,"name":"referee-response-35656","label":"Referee Report","group":{"name":"article-reports","label":"Article Reports"}},{"value":"This work was supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [INV-007156]. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.\u2003. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.","order":4,"name":"grant-information","label":"Grant Information"},{"value":"This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.","order":0,"name":"copyright-info","label":"Copyright"}]}}