Dr. Walton Small, president of the Inter-Secondary School Sports Association’s (ISSA), explained the “extenuating circumstances” that were taken for Ugandan Arymanya Rodgers to represent Kingston College (KC) at Champs this year.

According to a Jamaica Observer Report, Dr. Small said Rodgers was flagged for registration in ISSA’s system because, “For a student to participate right away coming from a non-member school or in this case, a different country, the student needs to be under the age of 16. The student should be registered by September 30 and should have an attendance record of 80 per cent.”

At the ISSA executive meeting to decide Rodgers fate, 10 of 15 principals attended, eight voted to allow the athlete to compete, one against and the other abstained.

Calabar’s principal Albert Corcho, who is a member of ISSA’s executive committee, missed the meeting, but school showed their disapproval with a statement on Wednesday.

Calabar, in their statement said Rodgers didn’t register properly to be able to represent KC at Champs this year.
“The notion that he was registered before arrival, while capitalizing on a common misinterpretation of what it means to be registered, is wholly inaccurate. To be promised, offered, granted a space in an institution isn’t the same thing as being registered. In fact, the Ministry of Education’s Policy is that a
student cannot be registered in absentia. The parent may be absent for registration but not the student!
“The decision was based on factors deemed extenuating. Needless to say it would be most helpful if ISSA articulated some of these factors and juxtaposed them against other instances in which they failed to apply this discretion,” Calabar release stated.
ISSA admitted Rodgers failed to meet its September 30 guideline, but at their executive meeting used “extenuating circumstances” to clear the way for the young man.

The ISSA president then outlined what transpired:

*He (Rodgers) met the requirement of being under the age of 16 but the business of attendance and registration for September 30 were not so.

*The documentation that we received from Kingston College indicated that all documents, with effect for registration of Mr Rodgers, were received by July 18.

* The young man was originally slated to arrive in Jamaica on August 24 and an itinerary was provided. If all things went well, he would have been in Jamaica on the morning of August 24th.

*However, when the young man went to the airport on the morning of August 23rd for his the flight, he was refused boarding because Germany expected him to have a visa.

* Discussions were held at various levels, which included the Jamaica Foreign Affairs department, the German Foreign Affairs department and all of this documentation was received.

* With all that, he was still refused boarding by the airline and he lost his ticket because he had to use another method. Another ticket was purchased, which had the young man travelling from neighbouring Kenya and expected to arrive in Jamaica on the 24th of September. But because of the back and forth, he lost that ticket. So he travelled from Kenya by bus on September 23rd and again, with instructions, support and advise from the Jamaican Embassy here, he was refused a flight because the airline was insisting that he get a visa. Again, that ticket was lost.

* Eventually in September, he finally got a ticket to fly to Jamaica from Curacao. So they finally got a flight and it was on limited time and that flight took the young man to Jamaica on October 16.

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