The Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry Schools’ Board of Ed­u­ca­tion says it has no ob­jec­tion to stu­dents and teach­ers wear­ing East In­di­an at­tire to mark Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions in its 72 pri­ma­ry schools.

The Board is­sued a press re­lease on Wednes­day, af­ter an on­slaught of crit­i­cism on so­cial me­dia fol­low­ing an ar­ti­cle in the T&T Guardian news­pa­per about stu­dents not be­ing al­lowed to wear In­di­an at­tire at the Pe­nal Rock Pres­by­ter­ian School.

The ar­ti­cle stat­ed that the de­ci­sion came about fol­low­ing a memo by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion's School Su­per­vi­sor, re­mind­ing the prin­ci­pals and teach­ers about the min­istry's pol­i­cy that stu­dents must wear their uni­form to at­tend school, change in­to the at­tire for what­ev­er event the school is cel­e­brat­ing, and then change back in­to their uni­form be­fore leav­ing the school com­pound.

The Board's re­lease stat­ed: "In fact, our stu­dents and teach­ers have tra­di­tion­al­ly been free to wear cloth­ing to mark the var­i­ous re­li­gious ob­ser­vances and na­tion­al fes­ti­vals and ac­tiv­i­ties."

How­ev­er, the Board stat­ed that the var­i­ous neg­a­tive com­ments on so­cial me­dia blam­ing the Pres­by­ter­ian Church of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry Schools’ Board of Ed­u­ca­tion for stu­dents not be­ing al­lowed to wear East In­di­an at­tire on Wednes­day to cel­e­brate Di­vali, is not based on facts but con­jec­ture and false in­for­ma­tion.

"The fact is that the prin­ci­pal’s ac­tions were based on a writ­ten di­rec­tive to her and oth­er Prin­ci­pals in the Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict,” the re­lease said. “The Board ful­ly un­der­stands the angst of par­ents in all our schools who are up­set that their chil­dren did not get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to cel­e­brate Di­vali at school in their tra­di­tion­al East In­di­an wear."

The Board ex­pressed con­cern that the guid­ance and ad­vice giv­en to prin­ci­pals by Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cials across Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­tricts were di­verse and not con­sis­tent.

It fur­ther stat­ed that the Min­istry has to is­sue clear guide­lines on this mat­ter.

"The Board is call­ing on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to is­sue clear writ­ten guide­lines to all Prin­ci­pals for in­stances where there is a de­sire to vary the school uni­form for var­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties,” it said. “All stu­dents chang­ing from their school uni­form to oth­er cloth­ing at school does not seem prac­ti­cal, es­pe­cial­ly in large schools."

Not­ing that pri­ma­ry Schools do not have change rooms, the Board stat­ed hav­ing chil­dren change their clothes in school will be chal­leng­ing to man­age, bear­ing in mind the con­di­tions of some wash­rooms.

The Board added that stu­dents’ pri­va­cy and stor­age of uni­forms, shoes and oth­er is­sues should al­so be con­sid­ered.

The Board al­so said it is pre­pared to work with all stake­hold­ers to find a process that would en­sure stu­dents' safe­ty, while al­low­ing them to en­gage in ac­tiv­i­ties that in­volve wear­ing cloth­ing oth­er than their school uni­forms.