ISSA Champs rule counterproductive

By Orville Higgins

The debate is back on the front burner, and I am happy for it. The Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) has a rule that says students must average 45 per cent in at least four subjects if they are to take part in any ISSA-run sports competition.

The rule was well-intentioned when it came about some years ago. Too many of our students then were going to school merely to take part in Champs and schoolboy football and paid scant regard to their academic pursuits. Something had to be done.

Like all rules, though, this one needs revisiting. In the days of Common Entrance, students who matriculated to high school were expected to be of a certain standard. It wasn't so much a 'placing' exam as a 'pass or fail' exam, and, therefore, it is fair to assume that averaging 45 per cent in four subjects was well within their grasp if they could pass Common Entrance.

Since GSAT's emergence, we have been sending some primary students into high schools who are not that bright to begin with. Asking these students to go to high school and suddenly start performing at a level they didn't enter the school with is unrealistic.

Very few students who enter high school from GSAT with an 80 or a 90 average maintain that through high schools. Indeed, the norm is for them to drop by, maybe, 20 points. So the student who averaged high 80s in GSAT will be doing OK if he averages high 60s in high school. The youngster who comes into high school with a 45 average at the start, what are the realistic chances does he or she have of averaging 45 in four subjects consistently?

We assume that averaging 45 per cent in four subjects should be relatively easy, but it isn't necessarily so. A lot of these students suffer from genuine learning disabilities. One study I have seen suggested that maybe five per cent of students will suffer from dyslexia. We do not properly diagnose every child's capacity for learning, and, therefore, a blanket rule is unfair.

not conducive to learning

Plus, a lot of them come out of environments that are genuinely not conducive to learning. Doing well in school is due, in no small measure, to the homes where these children are from. As a trained teacher myself, I don't have to even see the students to be able to gauge how well they will do.

Get me a chance to meet the parents; find out their views on child rearing and their attitude to education; show me the home environment, and I will tell you, give or take a few, which of their children will do relatively well and which ones might struggle in school.

The other point is that while the sport-oriented child has to have an academic requirement to take part in sports, other students with extra-curricular interests are not put through the same mill. So there is no across-the-board rule about a 'dunce' student taking part in the drama club or the cadet corps.

The argument that ISSA is an institution for sports and, therefore, can only create rules for sports is weak. ISSA is an organisation for PRINCIPALS. If principals can come up with a rule that affects all students in all schools as it relates to sports, those same principals, through some other body, can enforce eligibility rules for other extra-curricular activities.

Schools, by the way, are finding their way around this 45 per cent rule. One well-known high school principal told me that he doesn't agree with the rule, (many other high-school principals don't either), and it seems he has found a way to lessen the chances of his students suffering.

He made the point that the ISSA rule doesn't say what subjects must be taught, and in essence how difficult the work has to be. He said if he finds out that a child has real learning issues, he simply suggests tailoring exams for the child at the level he is at and not necessarily for the level he is supposed to be. No point teaching calculus to a child who is struggling with counting and, therefore, he just sets a counting exam! It shouldn't have to get to that.

If a child is attending classes regularly, is displaying the kind of discipline that is satisfactory to the school, and is demonstrating real effort in trying to learn, that child should not be prevented from representing his or her school. ISSA needs to wheel and come again!

Orville Higgins is a sportscaster with KLAS ESPN Radio. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.