At least 34 students of Calabar High School in St Andrew have been refused entry to the institution at the start of the academic year on Monday.

When the Jamaica Observer arrived at the Red Hills Road school around 9:30am, some of the boys were standing in the sun outside the school gates while others milled about across the street.

In response to queries about why the youngsters had been locked out, Principal Sian Wilson told the Observer: “They are not ready for school.”

“You ask them why they are out there, ask them,” she added.

The boys, some of whom said they had been waiting at the gate before 8:00 am, gave various reasons why they had not been admitted to the campus. Reasons included: black hair dye, incorrect belt buckles, missing buttons from their khakis, tight pants, and incorrect hair lengths.

Wilson refused to answer queries on the dress code, or whether the parents of the young men had been notified that their sons had not been admitted to school.

The Ministry of Education has repeatedly hit out at the barring of students from school compounds even for dress code violations.

Then Minister of Education Fayval Williams said in 2022, “Schools are not allowed to do that. There are too many risks associated with that. Once a student steps on the school compound, we act in the place of parents. I’ve consistently said that there should not be any locking out, whatsoever, of our students from school,”

In 2019, then-State Minister Alando Terrelonge told the Jamaica Observer there “is absolutely no rationale for locking students out of school”.

The Jamaica Observer was unable to reach the current education minister, Dr Dana Morris-Dixon, for this article.

— Dana Malcolm