An application form by Parktown Boys’ High to the Gauteng education department for permission to undertake an excursion that led to the death of a grade 8 pupil did not reach the district director’s office because it was lying in an intern’s desk drawer.

The intern who “apparently” received the document was on a temporary assignment from another government department.

Two departmental officials were each slapped with three months’ suspension from work after the “intern’s omission”...