BREAKING NEWS: Linstead school says it reported breach, loses major points
October 9, 2019Charlemont High School said it does not regret reporting a breach, which resulted in the institution plunging from second position to the bottom of Zone K in the ongoing ISSA/WATA daCosta Cup Football Competition.
Principal of the St Catherine-based school, Garth Gayle, told The Beacon that, as soon as he heard about the breach, he reported it to the schoolboy football governing body – the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA).
He said a footballer, who recently graduated from Ewarton High School, was accepted into the sixth form programme at Charlemont. It subsequently was discovered that someone had tampered with the academic documents that the student presented to Charlemont.
The correct documents later showed that the student footballer was not qualified to enter sixth form. Hence, he should not have been representing Charlemont in the daCosta Cup competition.
Gayle explained: “The student started training [for Charlemont] during the summer. Following the summer training, while awaiting the [exam] results, we received from him results that were presented that he was successful in order to matriculate into our sixth form programme. So, he was placed in sixth form.
“We later learnt that he [allegedly] got assistance in doctoring the results to reflect a pass when he had actually had a failure [in one of the subjects]. We immediately wrote to ISSA about our discovery. We met with ISSA officials and said, by the rules, we would have presented information [to ISSA] that was not correct, and so the points for the games in which the student represented us would be taken and presented to the opposing team,” Gayle added.
The footballer in question represented Charlemont High in two matches played against Dinthill Technical High School. Charlemont won one of those matches and drew the other.
As a result of the breach, Charlemont lost all points gained in the said matches. Dinthill, on the other hand, gained a total of six points, Gayle further disclosed.
He told The Beacon that Charlemont High reported the matter to ISSA because it is an institution of integrity.
“The integrity of the institution has been breached. We pride ourselves as being one of the premier school in all spheres of school endeavour,” he added.
READ our previous story: Uncertainty grips Charlemont | player left out amid investigation
The Charlemont High principal said: “We had to report the matter to ISSA because, having learnt about the dishonesty, we could not, as a school of over 40 years, be a participant in skulduggery or any form of dishonesty. So, what we did is not a happy moment, but we had to take the high road and report the matter, having visited Ewarton High School and learnt the [student’s] correct exam results.”
By Horace Mills, Journalist; B.A. degree in Media and Communications; CARIMAC, University of the West Indies
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