JOHANNESBURG – Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) MEC Panyaza Lesufi says he has dispatched a team to Cornerstone College, to investigate the circumstances which led to a grade one pupil being removed from the Pretoria school, after missing one day of class to attend a church conference.

Eyewitness News is in possession of a paper trail stretching back to August detailing how Tebogo Lekalakala and his wife Flora asked permission from the college for their seven-year-old son to be allowed to leave.But the school found that the Jehovah’s Witness convention was not compulsory for the child and eventually ended his parents’ contract after they took him out of school for the day anyway. Lesufi has warned he will have no choice but to intervene if it’s found the college was unfair in its handling of the situation. “Education is a Constitution right that every child, after being admitted to the school of their choice, you can’t deny them that right to access education. So what we’ve done now is to wait for the report but that child will have to go back school, the sooner the better.” Lekalakala says he is shocked that the Christian School – would take what he terms harsh action against his son – for missing just one day to go to church.

Source: Cornerstone College investigated after grade 1 boy forced out