Dear Editor,

As a society we should be very bothered when we see young men being denied entry into their school because of their hairstyles. It just does not sit well with me that these trivial matters superseded what needs our urgent attention — educating our young people.

And before you think I am advocating for a wanton free-for-all approach to education, please know, this is not my point. What is needed here is a recognition of what is happening to our children.

After almost two years of being out of school because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, having to receive instruction primarily online, our youth deserve more sympathy, empathy, and care than we display when we close our school gates on them over matters that are of little consequence in the grand scheme of things. Our priorities do not seem to be in the right place. These last few months have been a clear sign that our education system is not only broken, but backward.

Schools must have rules, but do some of us who enforce these rules so unwaveringly even realise that rules which have become outdated and irrelevant do more harm than good to the very individuals we are trying to empower through education? Rules concerning hairstyles for boys in many schools make it unacceptable for the young men to trim their hair in a “fade” or “jersey” style. The prescribed haircut is a low crew cut in which the hair is trimmed on one low level. Some student handbooks go as far as stipulating the maximum height at which one’s hair can be worn.

Hairstyles for men have long evolved beyond the crew cut. Even at the highest level of many corporate organisations, acceptable male hairstyles now include various fades, locks, and even afros. The guiding principle is that one must groom their hair, meaning, it should not be left unkempt but should portray an effort to be decent in one’s appearance.

Something as transient as what is the desired haircut of the day should not be allowed to stand between our boys and the classroom.

In the 70s, afros were all the rave. We eventually favoured lower cuts towards the 90s and early 2000s. Now we are in a kaleidoscopic culture where it seems everyone has space to create their own personal style, drawing inspiration from both past and present trends. How is it then, that in 2022, black children are being locked out of school because their hair is not cut low enough or on one level?

At this time, with learning loss fast becoming a buzz word in educational circles, our concern for our children should be primarily to attend to their psychosocial and educational needs.

We need to stop forcing children to earn the right to be educated. We need to stop fighting them to conform to outdated norms to earn education and punishing those who do not conform.

We need to stop holding them back for something that has little to no bearing on who they will really become in a few short years, namely our nation’s leaders.

We need to stop tokenising education as something gifted only to the privileged or those who conform and obey.

And we need to stop fighting our children whose right it is to be educated, loved, and nurtured instead of being rejected and oppressed for simply reflecting the society around them while trying to find themselves.

Shanique Lee-Lounds

thewritersmechanic@gmail.com