Glenda Anderson, Staff ReporterDisgruntled parents are feverishly searching for "suitable" high school places following recently published Grade Six Acheivement Tests (GSAT) results.
This year, 48,979 of 50,547 GSAT students were placed in schools islandwide.
Some parents, however, expressed dissatisfaction with the schools where their children were placed.
With traditional high schools being the preferred choice among parents, up-graded institutions continue to be cast in a negative light. The need to "get a transfer", has become urgent and the traditional schools are swamped with these requests.
One Corporate Area parent was so upset that his daughter was placed at up-graded school Haile Selassie Comprehensive High and not the traditional Queen's School that he allegedly beat his child causing her to seek medical attention. He was subsequently arrested and charged for cruelty to a juvenile.
Immaculate Conception High School in St. Andrew records a waiting list in the "hundreds", with no room for transfers.
"It's really too much," one official explained. She said that many of the requests come for students who went to the preparatory school and got placements elsewhere (in the junior high schools) or had relatives who attended the high school themselves. There were also those who hoped to be accomodated under the entrance test or five per cent provision.
But the option of transferring to the school of choice may be limited.
"There is hardly any room for transfers," says information officer with the Education Ministry, Edwin Thomas.
He said that, as with the earlier Common Entrance Examinations, parents and students had been disappointed with their placement forcing them to seek transfers to other schools. But while some requests may stem from a genuine need for relocation, he said some were caused by "public perception" of the school's image as either good or bad, or the perceived status of the schools.
He said that in instances this is even perpetuated by the schools themselves.
"If they are able to prove themselves as being equal to or better than the traditional schools, then they can get rid of that perception. It is possible to sell yourself well, regardless of where the school is based. There are schools that have done just that. But not having concerned themselves with image over the years, some schools become saddled with an image that they don't want, and cannot lose," he said.
Parents who wish to transfer their children must first secure a place for the child in a school willing to accommodate him/her, along with a letter of offer from the school. The parents or guardians must also obtain a letter of release from the school to which the child was originally placed. Both letters are taken to the Ministry of Education and presented for verification.
To date, Mr. Thomas, said the Ministry has only received 21 such requests from parents across the island.
Rethinking strategy
With schools officially on summer holidays, administrative staff at other schools around the Corporate Area were engaged in staff meetings or other social activities.
But at least one non-traditional high school is considering a rethink of its current status following successive years of students shying away from entry because of its perceived image.
Grace Taylor, vice-principal of Charlie Smith High School in lower St. Andrew (Kingston 12), says that the school has always lost the majority of its intake to transfer requests.
"So far, we have had two requests for students wanting to go elsewhere, and one to come. But it's always been like that. Last year, of 126 students who were to come, we got only 17. Usually we get a little over half of the list that we're expecting."
The reasons she says are often the same: "It's the nature of the community, some persons are not accustomed to life inside the inner cities, so they are fearful or wary. Other parents definitely want their children to go to traditional high schools, so usually our population is 90-95 per cent from this locale."
But there are those, she says, whom the school recommends or assists with their transfers.
"There are actually some children who we try to help to get transfers to other schools outside. Because when you identify some persons with a certain potential, I strongly believe they should be and recommend that they be transferred elsewhere, because you see that they will need outside help. It's really no progress for a (bright) child to leave from all-age or primary school (in the same area) and attend high school there. They need to be exposed to other situations," she says. "There are those who would need extra help and especially when the area is tense you can't ask teachers to stay behind to assist."
