Johannesburg - A Joburg father is removing his son from a prestigious boys’ school amid allegations of Islamophobia as well as victimisation and bullying by the teachers.
The man, who cannot be named to protect his son’s identity, said that when the principal of King Edward VII Preparatory School, Doug Shead, made offensive remarks about Islam last year, he forgave him on the condition that his son would not be victimised.
Then this year, Shead failed, the father said, to act swiftly against a teacher who victimised the boy.
Zac* said the last straw was when a boy from the high school roughed his son up in the presence of another teacher.
When he confronted the principal, he was told it was just children playing.
“He said it was just boys having fun and there was nothing untoward about the teacher’s behaviour,” the man said.
Zac said he realised it would be better to remove his child from the school.
He said his son was accused of wrongdoing in February last year and taken to the principal’s office.
There, Shead allegedly asked him what his religion was. The then 11-year-old Yusuf* said it was Islam.
Zac said Shead told his son he was behaving badly in the name of Islam, that some Islamic people were “killing Korkie” and that the religion was skewed.
Pierre Korkie was a Bloemfontein teacher who was held captive by al-Qaeda for over a year and died in December last year during a rescue operation.
Zac said the principal also asked his son whether he would like it if he (Shead) killed him and whether Yusuf would like it if people killed other people.
Zac said Shead later apologised for those remarks, but Zac believes he wasn’t happy about having to do so.
This is why he thinks Shead failed to act when Yusuf was victimised by a teacher this year and also when another teacher allegedly instigated an attack on him.
Yusuf was in his technology class when two boys from the high school came into the class. One roughed him up in front of the teacher.
The incident was caught on a classroom video and shows one of the boys pointing at Yusuf and looking at someone who is not visible on the screen, seemingly confirming whether the person he was pointing at was the correct one.
Zac believes the person the boy was communicating with while pointing at his son was the technology teacher.
Later, the video shows one of the boys roughing Yusuf up as other pupils yell at him to leave him alone.
The boys then put Yusuf in the same teacher’s office.
Zac said he was livid because he believes the technology teacher was the one who instigated, supervised and subsequently endorsed the bullying of his son.
“Why did she not stop it; she’s just standing there,” he said.
Zac said he confronted the principal but he downplayed the incident, referring to it as child’s play.
What was worse, he said, was that Yusuf was subsequently sent to the school counsellor and the counsellor is the mother of his attacker.
He said it was only when he pressured the school to do something about the teacher that a disciplinary hearing was set up.
The Star spoke to Shead about the allegations Zac made against him and the teachers, including that he was Islamophobic.
Shead said the disciplinary action against the teacher involved was under way and it would prejudice the case if he spoke further about it.
He did not address the other allegations.
Zac also laid a complaint with the Gauteng Department of Education, and its spokeswoman Phumla Sekhonyane confirmed that an investigation was under way.
*Not their real names
The Star