'Children have the right to even-handedness'
Published:Saturday | December 3, 2011 | 12:00 AM
THE 18 YEARS he has been principal of Knox College has given the
Reverend Dr Gordon Cowans adequate first-hand knowledge of just how deep
the rural versus urban divide runs, to the extent that he now views it
as a cultural phenomenon definitely skewed against 'country' people.
While
not tangible, it is an element that goes beyond individuals and is now
entrenched in some institutions as well, he contends. As a result,
students in rural schools such as Knox College pay a very hefty price in
how they are perceived, evaluated and generally treated.
"You get
it in the journalism all the time. Like this year when the Knox
football team performed the best it has ever done in 65 years, a
journalist prophesying about a return match speaks of Knox's opponent as
having an opportunity for a walkover, even though the first match in
season was a drawn match," related Cowans.
Clearly incensed by the
offending memory, he questions the reporter's professionalism. "Now
what kind of journalism is this? If a team were to be a walkover, why
wouldn't you have walked over them the first time you met them. I
suppose the journalist was very pleased he wasn't paid by the accuracy
of his prophecy because this match that should have been a walkover was
another drawn match," argued Cowans. "So the team A, with its history of
football prowess came up against Knox and on both occasions found a
stout defence."
KNOX COLLEGE principal, the Rev Dr Gordon Cowans, is demanding that irrespective of their track record in whatever sphere of competition, his and other rural schools should be allowed to compete on a level playing field.
Is the Corporate Area native turned 'countryman' overreacting to a minor issue? He thinks not!
"When you come as a school from rural Jamaica, you still get what is sometimes a kind of old, 'Here are some country people' kind of difference between urban and rural, but that is just one of the areas. You hear about this old boys' club in Jamaica but where can this club be found and how do you join. Well, the bottom line is, of course, that it is located in no place and you cannot join it. You're either in it or you are not," Cowans noted.
Fresh from a competition in which the school had participated only the day before our interview where Knox placed third, Cowans charged that the school was denied its true second-place finish, a direct result of this built-in bias, to which it objected afterwards.
It's about the children
"Let me bellyache about this because it is so not about me. It's about the children and I am demanding that whenever the children go to represent this school, they be treated fairly. Whether the response is because this is not a known school in that area of engagement or not; all we are saying is that the children have the right to even-handedness."
According to Dr Cowans, over time this kind of treatment could adversely impact the self-esteem of rural youngsters who might eventually ascribe to the view that they are intrinsically inferior to their urban neighbours.
"The way Jamaica is going to progress is if every child in every part of Jamaica can feel that there is evenness in all things. So things that become constraints to people's capacity to excel need to be removed," Cowans stated.
Continuing, he said: "Jamaica is too small a country for any children to be born anywhere that makes them feel that because they were born behind God's back, some benefit is not going to come to them."