Special characters

I am using Select2 plugin in apex version 6.
I have a page where there is an item that displays a list of codes using a Select2 list.
Some of the codes have values containing special characters e.g Y&P.
These are displaying as for example Y&amp:stuck_out_tongue:

Is there a way I can get the actual value to be displayed?

I don’t want have to set the item property Escape special characters to Yes so prevent script tags.

How do you installed Select2 on APEX?