Da­reece Po­lo

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) has re­spond­ed to calls for its in­ter­ven­tion in guid­ing the hair pol­i­cy at schools across T&T, propos­ing the in­tro­duc­tion of a Na­tion­al School Hair Code un­der the Na­tion­al School Code of Con­duct.  

Changes would be com­ing in time for Sep­tem­ber which is the start of the aca­d­e­m­ic year 2023/2024. Stu­dents will be al­lowed to wear locs, twists, plaits, afros, and corn­rows.  

The twist comes a week af­ter 23 boys at Trin­i­ty Col­lege, Mo­ka were sep­a­rat­ed from their peers dur­ing their grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny be­cause their hair­styles were con­sid­ered in­ap­pro­pri­ate ac­cord­ing to the school’s guide­lines. The teenage boys styled their nat­ur­al hair in corn­rows, and afros, or left their curls out for the event. This sparked some dis­plea­sure among the school ad­min­is­tra­tion.

When the in­ci­dent be­came pub­lic, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly de­scribed it as “un­for­tu­nate and re­gret­table” in a Face­book post on June 28.

Stake­hold­ers in­clud­ing the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA), Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teacher’s As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), and oth­ers met vir­tu­al­ly at 10 am yes­ter­day.

At the meet­ing, they learned the min­istry’s pro­pos­als as fol­lows:  

1. Stu­dents shall main­tain neat and clean hair at all times  

2. Hair that cross­es shoul­der length should be tied back at all times for safe­ty rea­sons (boys and girls)  

3. Locs, twists, plaits, afros, and corn­rows shall be al­lowed for all stu­dents  

4. Fe­male stu­dents shall be al­lowed to wear hair ex­ten­sions in­clud­ing weaves and braids  

5. Wigs and dyed or coloured hair for stu­dents are not al­lowed. In ex­cep­tion­al cas­es, as de­ter­mined by the school prin­ci­pal, ap­proval may be grant­ed to stu­dents  

6. Hair­styles that ob­struct the nor­mal view of oth­er stu­dents are not al­lowed  

7. Eye­brow mark­ings and eye­lash ex­ten­sions are not al­lowed  

8. Hair­cut part­ing de­signs should be mod­est. In­tri­cate de­signs are not al­lowed  

9. Hair or­na­ments should be in com­pli­ance with in­di­vid­ual school rules  

A state­ment from the MoE said that in­di­vid­ual schools are man­dat­ed to form a com­mit­tee to de­ter­mine their re­spec­tive hair rules which must align with the code. This ex­er­cise must be com­plet­ed by Oc­to­ber and a copy should be sub­mit­ted to the line school su­per­vi­sor.

“All par­ents and stu­dents should be sen­si­tised by the school’s ad­min­is­tra­tion about the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the school hair rules be­fore they are ef­fect­ed,” the MoE said.

“Dur­ing the in­ter­ven­ing pe­ri­od be­tween the com­ing in­to force of the Na­tion­al School Hair Code and the School Hair Rules of an in­di­vid­ual school, no stu­dent should be pe­nalised on the ba­sis of a hair­style, once they are in con­for­mi­ty with the Na­tion­al School Hair code,” it added.  

De­nom­i­na­tion­al boards
have dif­fer­ing views

De­nom­i­na­tion­al boards have dif­fer­ing views on the pro­pos­al. The Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) Vi­jay Ma­haraj said the pro­pos­al push­es the en­ve­lope be­yond what should be al­lowed.

“Are we go­ing to go and al­low nose rings, stud in the tongue, boys wear­ing ear­rings etc? Be­cause this is where it’s lead­ing to. You’re go­ing to com­plete­ly re­move the bar­ri­er and we’re go­ing to be­come Amer­i­can­ised in our ed­u­ca­tion. And then, are we go­ing to talk about there’s no longer a need for a uni­form? So, we don’t know which child at­tends which schools?” he asked.

The chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Catholic Ed­u­ca­tion Board of Man­age­ment Sharon Man­groo was more agree­able, though she not­ed that there ought to be some tweaks to the lan­guage.  

“Gen­er­al­ly, there’s agree­ment that such a pol­i­cy is need­ed. I think the Catholic Board rec­om­mend­ed some clar­i­fi­ca­tion—de­f­i­n­i­tions of terms and so on—and gen­er­al­ly that we wel­come the in­clu­sion of stu­dents in de­ci­sion mak­ing,” she said.  

She fur­ther ac­knowl­edged that the rules are root­ed in a colo­nial past and made calls for phi­los­o­phy to be taught in sec­ondary schools.  

“A study of phi­los­o­phy will help us to un­der­stand how to think and why we think the way we think, and I think that is im­por­tant, to un­der­stand the im­pact the colo­nial lega­cy has on us,” she said.  

Chair­man of the Trin­i­ty Board of Gov­er­nors Dr Shel­ley-Ann Tenia was obliv­i­ous to the pro­pos­al though Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that all stake­hold­ers were in­vit­ed to the dis­cus­sion.

“We have not re­ceived any in­for­ma­tion about what you have shared. Con­se­quent­ly, the Board has no po­si­tion to ar­tic­u­late at this time,” she said.  

The pres­i­dent of the NPTA Kevin David said he was await­ing the MoE’s fi­nal pre­sen­ta­tion.

Mom of stu­dent banned from grad­u­a­tion hap­py the in­ci­dent has in­spired change

Mean­while, Sa­lene Grif­fith, whose son Bryce-An­tho­ny Grif­fith-Ryan was among the 23 boys not al­lowed to col­lect his cer­tifi­cate un­til af­ter the grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny due to his hair­style, said she was hap­py that the in­ci­dent has in­spired change.  

 “It was a cat­a­lyst for this con­ver­sa­tion to take place. It is a re­lief and I must state that it was not the in­ten­tion to break school rules. It was the in­ten­tion to demon­strate that they can ex­press them­selves one way or the oth­er,” she said.

De­spite the in­ci­dent, Grif­fith praised her son’s al­ma mater for its con­tri­bu­tion to his de­vel­op­ment. Her son was not around to give his com­ments.  

De­nom­i­na­tion­al boards will be meet­ing lat­er this month on the mat­ter.