Dear Editor,

The recent harsh public criticism of schools, particularly the Hopefield Preparatory School in St Andrew, over rules concerning students’ personal care and dress, is either largely based in arrogance, malicious in intent, or just plain “bad mind”.

This is not to say that the mother of the three-year-old boy who was refused admission to the said prep school should not be upset, but sometimes we have to be stunned back into reality.

I bet you if this was one of those posh schools for which parents have to apply for their children’s admission years prior to it, or have to pull some serious ‘velvet’ strings to get in, then you would not have heard much of a commotion, including from a “disappointed” parent, because the tentative social contract between parent and school would dictate that submission to the school’s rules would be worth it.

Apparently, this is not so for schools representing the ordinary and the minnows among us.

Although we have been, and will continue to be, forced to accept that there is a set of rules for the most fortunate among us and another for those who are not, at least let us allow the lower echelon to keep up or raise their standards if they diligently so desire. Raising the bar should never be mistaken for erecting a wall in a nation, and indeed a world, which needs to constantly improve, lest we fade away.

Andre O Sheppy

Norwood, St James

astrangely@outlook.com