SO desperate are some parents to get their child a place at the Queen’s High School, that the two signs — strategically placed inside the school’s reception area — are often ignored.

“There is absolutely NO SPACE for transfers,” the notices say.

Yet, on Tuesday several parents waited patiently in the corrider just outside the school’s reception area, hoping that the principal will reverse her decision. Georgia Dixon was one of them.

“I am looking a space for my daughter who passed for Oberlin High,” says Dixon, who lives in Kingston.

“It is not that I hate the school,” she adds, “but Oberlin is too far and I can’t afford to spend $200 a day for travel to and from school out of the minimum wage I am earning.”

Dixon lives in the Cassava Piece area of Kingston, not far from Queen’s, a girl’s school, is on South Avenue, off Constant Spring Road, at the northern end of the city. Oberlin is at Lawrence Tavern, in rural St Andrew.

Queen’s also has a reputation as one of Jamaica’s leading high schools for girls. Oberlin is not often spoken about in that category.

But that’s not her major concern in trying to place her daughter at Queen’s, according to Dixon.

“If I could get her in the Queen’s High School, it would be much easier for me because it’s much nearer,” she explains.

The Queen’s principal, Yvonne Keane-Dawes, says that since the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) results were released out over a week ago, more than 50 parents have sent in letters requesting transfers.

The chances of these applicants getting favourable responses are “slim”, she says.

“We understand the parents’ concerns but we do not have any space to accommodate the students,” Keane-Dawes stresses. “We can only consider an application if a child that was originally awarded a place at my school does not take up the offer.”

According to Keane-Dawes, the parents are very persistent. A few are even at times rude to her staff.

“Some are here from the school gate opens in the morning until 6:00 pm. They are not taking ‘no’ for an answer,” she says.

In the old days, where there was the common entrance exam, principals, on their own accord, could accept applications for their schools of up to five per cent of the placements.

But principals say that the education ministry has removed this discretion given the increasing demand for space with the GSAT system of automatic movement into a secondary school, after testing at Grade Six.

But parents still demand places.

What is faced by Keane-Dawes at Queen’s is, for instance, replicated at Meadowbrook High School where the numbers of parents requesting transfers climbs daily.

“It happens every year,” says Meadowbrook’s Alice Lowe. “We’ve had requests since January.”

Adds the school’s acting vice-principal, Lynden Burke: “We’re swamped. I’m sure we’ve had probably between 150 and 200 persons coming here, inclusive of those we’ve turned away.”

The reasons they give vary, he says.

Some parents say the school is near to their home or work, or they cite the academic achievements of the institution. For others it’s a matter of tradition, or they already have relatives attending.

Many of the requests are for students placed at newly upgraded high schools, such as Edith Dalton, Tarrant and Pembroke Hall High but there are some, Burke adds, who want to remove their child from a traditional high school because it is located in a violence-prone area or has serious disciplinary problems.

“We have had to put up notices saying, ‘no vacancy, no transfers’ (but) some still turn up, they beg and beseech but we can’t accommodate them,” says Burke.

Like Burke and Keane-Dawes, most principals have learnt to expect the rush for transfers which follows the GSAT. They are concerned however that the numbers are increasing each year.

The fear is supported by statistics from the education ministry. Last year 1,889 were transfers granted, up from 923 in 2000 and 614 in 1999.

The reason, they assume, is that there were more students to be placed by the ministry in the last two years than ever before. In addition, more students are doing better in the GSAT so there are more children competing for the same number of slots in the perceived ‘top schools’.

The education ministry is determined to quell the negative public perception towards some of the new high schools, says education minister Burchell Whiteman.

According to Whiteman, parents may seek a transfer from the ministry after they receive a written commitment from the school of their choice offering a space and a letter of release from the school assigned. But even then, a transfer is not automatic.

“By and large we do not accept transfers on the basis that parents just do not like a school,” says the minister.

“What we have to do is with the school’s active intervention, we have to try and correct the misperception… by not giving in too readily to this notion that ‘only some schools are really good for my child’,” stresses Whiteman. “I have to say that in the transfer system we have to be very careful not simply to give in to what seems to be a personal prejudice.”

The ministry has worked hard in the last two years to change the perception that traditional high schools produce better students than the former comprehensive highs. Since 1999 the ministry renamed the comprehensive high schools as high schools and spent over $200 million to upgrade their curricula, send teachers to improve their qualification and installed science and computer labs, among other changes.

With a brand new image, many of the upgraded high schools have begun to show marked improvement in output.

“We are now offering similar curriculum, and (sometimes) have better results in sport and academics,” boasts Selvyn Green, principal of Tacius Golding High and an executive member of the association of newly upgraded high schools. “The perception is changing.”

But Green admits that “there is much more to be done”.