BY DANIA BOGLE

Observer writer

INTER-Secondary School Sports Association (ISSA) officials have underlined their belief in the importance of a minimum academic standard for athletes to be able to participate in the annual Boys’ & Girls’ Athletics Championships and other competitions run by the school sports’ governing body.

Students from first to fifth form must attain an average of 45 per cent in at least four subjects in the term prior to the competition, while at the sixth form level the student must have passed at least four subjects at CXC and be sitting at least three subjects at CAPE to qualify.

Each year at least one of the best athletes has failed to make the grade, and this year is no different with Odean Skeen of Wolmer’s Boys and Demar Robinson of 2012 boys champions Calabar being the casualties.

Skeen, the 2010 100m World Youth champion and 100m bronze medallist from the 2012 World Junior Championships, would have been a top contender for the 100m Class One title, while Robinson was expected to finish in the top two in the Class One high jump.

ISSA vice-president and St Elizabeth High School Principal Keith Wellington told the Jamaica Observer that the rules were implemented because the body had concerns about the scholastic part of the students’ participation.

“In terms of our objectives at ISSA we are not the youth arm of the national sporting bodies. We are schools who organise co-curricular activities. It is very important that students combine their academic work with their extra-curricular activities.”

Wellington said that his organisation does not exclude students because they are weak academically.

“I don’t think ISSA has anything against that belief, and as schools we all encourage students, whatever their talent, to work at it, but we also say to them ‘you are in a school environment’. The taxpayers’ money is paid for schools to ensure that students get an academic grounding.”

He also noted that a standardised test is not administered.

“So schools have the option of working with students at the level they are at. People who are interested any at all in doing their schoolwork can qualify.”

Meanwhile, Ian Forbes, head of Jamaica College’s Sports Committee, pointed out that the Old Hope Road-based institution was able to win the Boys’ Championships title in 2011 despite not having the services of Rohan Walker, one of the most outstanding athletes that season.

Walker was excluded for academic reasons and while Forbes admitted that schools are meant for academic learning, a lot has changed.

“It’s a very delicate situation. The youngsters need to be facilitated, but they also need to be functional because there is life after competition, but it is a very thin line and one has to strike a balance,” he said.

“If you flip the script and look at a student who would get 10 ones and two twos (for example) check the athletic prowess and you will see. I think we should stop, flip it, and exactly see what you come up with and look at it from the point of view of the athlete who is asked to perform heroics academically in some instances.”

The school has since been helping Walker and other students who struggle academically, and Walker has been on the team for the last two years.

“It inspired the youngsters who competed. I think everyone felt they had to carry the extra load to compensate for his absence and they rose to the occasion,” he said.