FORMER Minister of Education and Youth Fayval Williams announced on Wednesday that teams from the education ministry will be visiting schools to inspect goalposts and ensure adherence to the standards for their use.

This follows Tuesday afternoon’s freak accident which claimed the life of grade eight Campion College student Rashad Richards, when a football goalpost fell on him on the school’s compound.

The Jamaica Observer was told that just after 3:00 pm, the boy, who was a member of the school’s rugby team, was playing on the goalpost that was not firmly tethered to the ground when it fell on him, causing serious injuries.

One unconfirmed report was that he was getting ready for rugby practice and was stretching near the post when the accident happened.

He was rushed to a nearby medical facility where he was pronounced dead, the Observer was also told.

Speaking at a post-Cabinet press briefing, Williams expressed heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Rashad, stressing that schools must remain places of safety. She added that the ministry will continue to ensure that safety is taught in physical education courses.

“My understanding yesterday was that there was quite a bit of rain, the soil may have softened — we don’t know — we have to investigate exactly what happened. But we want to assure Jamaicans that we do do checks across our schools, because we know the danger of goalposts in our schools having had the experience with deaths in the past,” she said.

Williams noted that a set of standards were promulgated for the equipment used in sports offered at schools, including goalposts and these standards are in the Jamaican standard specifications for the safety and performance of football goalposts.

She said the standards were created by the Ministry of Education and Youth in partnership with the Bureau of Standards Jamaica some years ago and these standards include how goal posts should be used and even how they should be secured when in and not in use. “We will be reminding schools of these standards,” she said.

In the meantime, Williams said the ministry’s guidance and counselling teams along with the guidance counsellors from other schools visited Campion College on Wednesday to begin to offer support to students and teachers.

This is the third such incident over the last 13 years. In March 2011, nine-year-old Sts Peter and Paul Preparatory School student Jerimiah Yson Jr died after a goalpost on the school’s playing field fell on him. The tragedy resulted in Sts Peter and Paul Prep, a feeder school for Campion College, implementing a number of safety measures, among them the use of aluminium goalposts.

Three months before that, a similar tragedy claimed the life of seven-year-old Nicholas Hamilton at Coke View Primary School in Westmoreland.

— Alecia Smith