Although I applaud Rehan Abdool’s words on the subject of racial division, his de facto application of policy is somewhat less than the rosy picture painted therein. I have known Mr Abdool for a little over 30 years and I consider it somewhat ironic that a person whom has frequently expressed racist views in private would dare, at least in public, to lecture as to the dangers of racial disenfranchisement.

For those of us whom have had the displeasure of dealing with him on a professional level, Mr Abdool is little more that a big fish in a small pond whose political ambitions have been stalled by his unpalatable non-secular position on T&Ts parliamentary division of religion and state.

If, now, by the ‘reprioritisation of values’ Mr Abdool is referring to the number of times he has used his family’s mammon to bully and intimidate teachers, parents and students alike or; the number of times that favouritism has been employed in the tender of reference letters to universities and other scholastic institutions then I have no doubt as to the veracity of his statements.

Let us not forget that Mr Abdool came to his position as Dean of Studies mainly through familial largesse rather than the academic qualifications that would be the nominal benchmark for a truly qualified candidate.

The Dean of Studies position, even in High School, is a position of student advocacy - not a soapbox for social engineering and certainly not a façade for openness veneering an undercurrent of socio-economic and religious intolerance. It is laughable that an individual whose oft-stated raison d'ttre is narrowly focused on keeping certain socio-economic and racial classes ‘in their place’ would claim a counterpoint for equality in excellence.