Dear Editor,

Discipline is indispensable to education, but discipline without reason is merely the exercise of power.

The recently reported policies at Holy Childhood High School concerning restrictions on certain bags and a prohibition on gel in students’ hair raise a question every parent, educator, and policymaker should ask: What is a school rule for? The answer cannot simply be that a school has authority to make one.

Rules are justified by the purposes they serve: protecting health and safety, maintaining an environment fit for learning, and preventing genuine disruption. A rule should be judged by the problem it addresses and the means chosen, not the confidence with which it is announced. Authority must be rational, purposeful, and proportionate.

Take the gel ban, punishable by a one-day suspension. What legitimate objective is served by excluding a child for wearing gel in her hair? Gel is an ordinary grooming product many girls use to maintain neat, natural hairstyles; there is an obvious contradiction in demanding neatness while banning what achieves it. If a specific style is the concern, say so — a blanket ban regulates far more than that would require.

Even when grooming regulation is legitimate, the sanction must fit the breach. A grooming product is not violence, not a weapon, not a threat to safety. Losing a day of school over hair gel is hard to reconcile with the purpose of discipline and sustaining the orderly continuation of education. The irony is stark: A child loses learning time being punished for a rule with no bearing on her ability to learn.

The same logic applies to bags. Schools may legitimately restrict obscene or vulgar material, but implementation matters, especially after parents have already spent on school preparations. The reported four-week grace period, ending October 5, 2026, is a sensible accommodation, though costly changes should ideally be announced before expenses are incurred.

Schools must distinguish genuine harm from mere fashion: Is it obscene, vulgar, unsafe, or truly disruptive? If not, institutional dislike is a weak basis for restriction. Children are developing individuals with dignity and identity; regulation should not suppress individuality without real justification.

The same disappearance of the child appears in a very different setting. Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness recently commented on Holland Primary School, recalling fondly learning outdoors under trees and arguing children shouldn’t be looked down on for lessons “closer to nature,” while acknowledging Government’s duty to fix failures. But deliberate outdoor learning is not the same as lessons held outside because classrooms are unavailable; a child may enjoy a lesson beneath a tree, but that does not relieve the State of its duty to provide safe, properly resourced classrooms.

Choice and necessity are not the same. In one case, the school over-regulates what does not threaten learning; in the other, the State under-provides what learning requires. The error is inverse; the result is the same.

In both cases, then, we must resist romanticising inadequate conditions and regulating children’s lives in unnecessary, minute ways. Before imposing any policy, schools should ask: What problem are we solving? Is the rule necessary and proportionate? Is there a less restrictive alternative? These questions do not weaken authority; they make it more legitimate.

Jamaica should want schools that are disciplined, orderly, and safe. But discipline is measured not by how quickly an institution can prohibit something, but by whether its rules are fair, intelligible, and genuinely purposeful. Children should not accept inadequate classrooms as a substitute for the State’s responsibility, or be casually excluded from class over trivial matters posing no real threat to education, health, or safety. We should demand not less discipline, but better discipline; not less authority, but more accountable authority.

The essential question is never whether you can make a rule, but whether you can justify it.

Nickhala Douglas

Human rights coordinator

Jamaicans for Justice

ndouglas@jamaicans forjustice.org