Education is about so much more than rigid uniformity

With that in mind, the news that the Equality Commission of NI will not be issuing guidance on natural afro hairstyles is a welcome boost to the young people of NI, as such minutiae are already covered adequately by discrimination advice in place for all organisations in the province.

This follows the Equality and Human Rights Commission in England, Wales and Scotland reminding children there that they should not be stopped from wearing their hair in natural afro styles, following the news that a school in London paid £8,500 in damages to a child who was repeatedly sent home because they basically wanted her to conform.

Nothing like a legal case to focus the mind, eh?

According to the Equality Commission here, they state clearly that they do not have guidance that specifically mentions hairstyles, but does look at discrimination as an overall picture and recommend that organisations which aren’t sure if their policies comply with equality law, should simply get in touch with them.

A common-sense approach, in my book, and one which implicitly says to schools, ‘In this day and age, catch yourselves on’.

Of course, this type of thing is not really an isolated incident and in this small example, we possibly have the sharp end of an iceberg popping its jagged edges towards the armada of the somewhat rudderless education system.

In short, the case has huge implications across all areas of dress code, and potentially calls into question the very issue of how much a school can control the images of their charges, even potentially calling into question the very existence of school uniforms – something that the vast majority of countries worldwide have abolished many years ago.

To break this argument down, I think we need to go back to first principles and to during an era when, ironically, school uniforms began as a way of adding cohesion and in so doing, giving certain equality to children irrespective of their parent's wealth; a lofty but well-intentioned social ideal.

Of course, nowadays the whole idea of uniformity – which includes homogenising school haircuts – is now anathema to the political Left as the rights of the individual are higher-placed social values.

Thoughts churlishly and immediately go to that wonderful scene in Monty Python’s ‘The Life of Brian’, when Brian says to the waiting mob: “You are all individuals”, to which they answer in unison, “Yes, we’re all individuals.”

Back to the case in point. So where does this control in society come from, as it’s certainly wider than a school issue?

Some blame the ruling elite and in turn, their power trickled down to the grammar school system, which could control their then mostly fee-paying students to wear a straight jacket uniform and behave both inside and outside class pretty much any way the school would choose.

Failure to do so would lead to the threat of being chucked out – something many readers of a certain generation will be all too familiar with.

Even recently, we have seen incidents where male Sixth Formers, especially, have been suspended or sent home as their hair was deemed too long.

Invariably this was in a grammar school setting, because non-selective schools couldn’t afford to be as choosy, or should I say, principals of non-selective schools couldn’t, as head teachers are paid per the number of children in the school.

It was a criticism that was levied at me often by the Pringle sweater brigade, “Oh, you teach all those boys with long hair”, they would say to me and my colleagues as though we were the providers of the relevant follicle compost.

I was, of course, very proud to say, “Yes, I did, and you know what? It didn’t seem to affect their intellect, behaviour or sociability to one degree.”

On a wider point, it’s a sad reflection that many of the finest pupils I taught often didn’t quite fit into the perfectly manicured round hole that their square soles were often inhumanely squeezed into.

It’s a topic I’ve often pondered upon, and I think most of the obsession in Northern Ireland and parts of across the water comes from our puritanical past, which in turn led to Victorian ideals of morality.

In short, we seem to want our young people, like our politicians, to be shining examples to all.

For example, if a politician has a few dodgy dealings outside his or her marriage in, say, France, it’s no big deal – yet when it happens here, political correspondents would be lining up to take potshots and call for an immediate resignation.

Scale that down to teaching and there is still a great deal of misguided perceptions of what are believed to be high standards in education.

Even in 2022, there are still head teachers who would smile contentedly and purr like Cheshire cats going past a dairy, if they walked down a corridor and, while peering into the silent rooms, would see serried ranks of children, sitting with tightly-buttoned shirts, ties at suffocation level, writing quietly while a teacher with corduroy patches on his tweed jacket clicked away on the chalkboard; his dusty hands writing strings of long formulae.

That isn’t at all to say that school uniforms or uniformity isn’t bad. We all embrace inclusivity and corporate branding, whether it is Joe Blogg’s Tyres having all their staff in matching fleeces, or a school with a well-polished corporate identity.

Uniforms do serve a purpose; it does help to promote a common ethos, and save mass confusion on the sports field.

What I’m saying is that sometimes that is taken too far; after all, the UK, Ireland and Malta are the only countries left in Europe where school uniforms are widely adopted by state and most private schools.

People are people, and young people have their own way of growing up, as different as the red and orange hues in the sunsets of Turner’s paintings.

We just have to let them get on with it, trust them and cut them some slack.