THE Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) will not budge from their rigid transfer rules adopted two years ago, even as they press ahead with trying to organise high school sports come later this year amid COVID-19 protocols.

Oneil Ankle, chairman of the Manning Cup committee, told a meeting of heads of departments and coaches yesterday that the rules restricting schools to a certain number of transfers depending on the sport, and students being allowed to transfer just once will be in place, despite the conditions and situations that will exist when the season starts.

“Nothing changes,” Ankle, the principal of Jonathan Grant High, said in a virtual meeting held on the Zoom platform. He pointed out that the rules regarding grades and attendance would still be in effect, saying “all schools have by now worked out the dynamics for students to move forward in their classes”, and said ISSA would accept the decisions of the schools regarding the students.

ISSA has gone ahead, with the blessing of principals, to make plans for sports to be played when school reopens in September should the go-ahead come from the Government.

With the expectation that a number of schools would not be able to compete in the football competitions this year given the protocols that will be required, a number of coaches asked whether the transfer rules would be waived to allow students who would miss their final season to move to another school that was taking part.

It was announced that swimming would be added to the sports that would be added to the calendar, if ISSA does get the green light to have sporting competitions this year.

ISSA had announced earlier that junior and senior football, basketball and netball would be played, starting a month or so after schools are reopened.

Two years ago ISSA, in what was described as a “landmark vote that was reportedly unanimous”, ISSA principals voted “to level the playing field”, thus the new rules will bar students from participating in ISSA-run competitions if they transfer more than once, and will put a cap on the number of transferred students that schools can include in their teams.

A release from ISSA had said: “School teams will have a limit placed on the number of transferred students (a quota) that will be allowed to be registered for various ISSA-run competitions. The quota will be applicable to students who change member school between 1st and 6th form (grades 7-13).” Additionally, “Each student will only be regarded as part of the receiving school’s quota for a competition if they had previously registered with another member school for the said sport for which he/she is being registered.”

“Students who move from one member school to another as of January 1, 2019, will be subject to the quota system for all ISSA competitions with effect January 1, 2020,” the release continued.

While students transferring from one school to the next will still be required to sit out a year, they will still count towards the quota for the entire duration of their stay at the institution, according to the rule.

The rule will only apply to students who had participated in sports at their first school, so if the student had not played a sport they would be able to transfer to another school and be eligible to participate.