Sore losers - Calabar students rebuked for vulgar anti-KC chants
Published:Wednesday | April 3, 2019 | 12:27 AMDanae Hyman/Gleaner Writer
Junior Education Minister Alando Terrelonge says the ministry will soon have in place a values and attitudes policy to address indiscipline in schools.
This comes in light of a number of videos showing Calabar High School students chanting derogatory slurs directed at their perennial arch-rivals, Kingston College, during Monday’s assembly at the Red Hills Road-based institution. The chants were seemingly spurred by Kingston College’s successful campaign to snap Calabar’s seven-year winning streak at the ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ Championships last Saturday.
“There will be a statement that speaks of respecting others and not to bully others, and not to use derogatory statements when addressing others, so certainly those will form a part of our national policy as it relates to values and attitudes,” Terrelonge said.
RESPECT IS KEY
Terrelonge also urged the students to embrace sportsmanlike conduct and not to be sore losers.
“You must be respectful that another team has won and you must demonstrate that level of good sportsmanship that says well done to the next team without resorting to the sort of chant that we have seen,” Terrelonge said.
Minister without portfolio with responsibility for education, Karl Samuda, also condemned the “distasteful” incident. He, along with Terrelonge and other ministry officials, met with Calabar’s administration yesterday to discuss the matter.
According to the school board, which will be expected to furnish the minister with a report on its investigations by Friday, the anti-gay slurs from a large section of the student body were used during the regular chanting of school cheers.
The school board condemned the utterances, saying they were “disturbing, distasteful, vulgar and not in keeping with the positive values and attitudes that we try to instil in our young men at Calabar”.
Yesterday, the Opposition People’s National Party also said it was disturbed by the incident.
“We are alarmed by and condemn the content of the video and, in particular, the lyrics that allege that Kingston College is a school of homosexuals. Neither the behaviour nor the lyrics represent the expectations we have of our students, teachers and leaders or our institutions of learning,” it said in a release.
A delegation from Calabar High School is expected to journey to Kingston College this morning to issue an apology.