CAMPERDOWN High School administrators have made an about-turn in their policy of denying access to students who arrive late to the east Kingston school, following a Ministry of Education bulletin forbidding the action.

Checks made by the Jamaica Observer yesterday revealed that students who are late are now being asked to log their names with the school’s security guard before proceeding to classes.

The school had previously taken a decision to bar late students from the compound, pending their provision of reasons for the tardiness.

Principal Valentine Bailey, addressing the matter in an interview with the Observer last week, said that school begins at 8:00 am and the gate is closed at 8:30 am.

Students are “processed” at 9:00 am, Bailey said then, and admitted based on the excuse they offer.

Yesterday, at 9:00 am, the school’s gate remained open as at least five students made their way onto the compound.

They proceeded to a desk being manned by a security guard before heading off to classes.

At the same time, the school’s head boy waited just outside the school’s gate, where he questioned his schoolmates about their reasons for being late.

The move, he said, was voluntary, “to get a better understanding of what causes them to be late”.

At approximately 9:30 am the main gate was closed, though a smaller gate remained open.

Efforts to reach Bailey yesterday for a comment on the change of the school’s policy were unsuccessful.

In a bulletin sent to schools last week Wednesday, the education ministry warned school administrators that it would take action against those found to be in breach of ministry regulations.

“The ministry is using this medium to remind all school administrators that restricting access/locking out students as a means of punishment for lateness and/or other breaches and infractions, such as dress code violation, is strictly prohibited,” the bulletin said.

The ministry also directed administrators who may be guilty to “desist with immediate effect”.

It said schools in violation of legislative framework, including the Child Care and Protection Act of Jamaica (Article 28) and the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (Articles 28 and 29), “will result in appropriate actions being taken by the ministry”.

The issue came to the fore last week when social media users circulated clips and images of students from Camperdown and Spanish Town high schools in St Catherine standing outside the schools’ gates.

In one of the video clips, a group of Spanish Town High students was seen standing in the rain. It evoked criticism on social media platforms Twitter and Facebook.

State minister in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information Alando Terrelonge told the Observer that legislators are in the process of amending the Education Act and regulations to address this and other issues.