A teaching practical should never end at a police station.

Yet this is precisely the reality that recently confronted a student teacher in Bloemfontein. What should have been an ordinary day of learning, observing, and developing professional skills instead became a day marked by fear, violence, and criminal charges.

A young woman left home carrying lesson plans, a teaching file, and the hope of becoming a teacher. She expected a day of classroom observations, mentor feedback, and professional learning. Instead, the 21-year-old student teacher was assaulted in broad daylight while travelling home from her teaching practice placement in Bloemfontein. After a video of the attack circulated on social media, a 22-year-old high school learner was arrested and charged with assault. What began as an ordinary day of learning to teach ended with a police case and a violent attack. The incident has sparked outrage across communities, but it also raises a broader question: what does this reveal about the realities many student teachers navigate every day in South Africa?

Teaching practice

Teaching practice is often described as the bridge between theory and practice. It is where student teachers develop confidence, gain classroom experience, and begin forming their professional identities. What receives far less attention are the conditions under which some are expected to do so.

For some, teaching practice means travelling to schools located in relatively secure communities, entering through monitored gates, and returning home safely at the end of the day. Their greatest concern may be lesson preparation, assessment tasks, or managing a classroom for the first time. For others, it begins before sunrise at a taxi rank. It involves multiple taxi rides, long walks through unfamiliar communities, and the constant awareness that personal safety cannot be taken for granted. One student teacher may spend the morning worrying about a lesson observation. Another may spend the morning worrying about whether their cellphone will be stolen before they reach the school.

Teaching practice begins long before the first lesson. It begins with calculating risk. As they walk, many student teachers hold onto their bags a little tighter. They remain alert to who is walking behind them. They silently hope that the group of young men gathered on the corner will leave them alone. At best, they may endure insults and harassment. At worst, they may encounter intimidation, robbery, or violence.

Yet they continue walking. Not because they feel safe. But because teaching practice is compulsory. This is perhaps one of the most uncomfortable realities confronting teacher education. Student teachers cannot simply opt out of placement schools that make them feel unsafe. Successful completion of teaching practice is often a requirement for progression and graduation. The profession expects them to be present, regardless of the conditions under which that presence must be negotiated.

Violence directed towards educators

The recent incident should also be understood within a broader context of growing concern about violence directed towards educators. In April 2025, the Mail & Guardian reported that almost half of South African teachers were considering leaving the profession because of violence, exhaustion, and deteriorating working conditions. Around the same period, Cape Argus reported that 50 teacher assault cases had already been recorded during the first months of the year.

These reports point to a troubling possibility: future teachers are entering a profession that many current teachers are already questioning. The conversation about violence in schools is therefore no longer only about protecting experienced educators. It is also about what prospective teachers are learning about the profession before they even qualify.

What makes the Bloemfontein incident particularly troubling is that the impact of violence rarely ends when the incident is over. Victims must seek medical attention, open police cases, provide statements, and often relive traumatic experiences while investigations unfold. This occurs while they continue attending lectures, completing assignments, and fulfilling teaching practice requirements.

The student teacher involved in this case reported the incident and pursued justice. But how many others do not? How many incidents remain hidden because students fear retaliation, disruption to their studies, or simply do not believe anything will happen? Meanwhile, perpetrators often continue with their lives while victims carry the burden of fear, anxiety, humiliation, and trauma. The emotional consequences often remain long after public attention has shifted elsewhere.

Student teachers must teach while navigating unsafe communities

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the recent incident is not that a student teacher ended up at a police station. It is that many South Africans were not surprised. We have become accustomed to stories of violence and insecurity in our communities. Yet each time a student teacher is exposed to these realities, we risk normalising a dangerous idea: that entering the teaching profession requires accepting personal vulnerability as part of the job.

It should not.

Before some student teachers have taught their first lesson, they are already learning the realities of the profession: violence, insecurity, emotional strain, and vulnerability. We expect them to complete lesson observations, submit portfolios, meet assessment requirements, and fulfil every institutional obligation associated with teaching practice.

Yet many are expected to do so while navigating unsafe communities, fearing for their personal safety, managing harassment, recovering from trauma, or simply trying to get to and from school safely. We assess their ability to teach.

But how often do we consider the conditions under which they are expected to learn?