The don­ning of nat­ur­al hair­styles has once again stirred up con­tro­ver­sy on what is the de­f­i­n­i­tion of well-groomed.

It’s a ques­tion that many hu­man re­sources man­agers are grap­pling with, but the de­bate has al­so found it­self with­in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

The lat­est in­ci­dent in­volv­ing a stu­dent at St Stephen’s Col­lege, who claimed that she was tar­get­ed by of­fi­cials at her school be­cause of her nat­ur­al hair­styles.

Among those who have weighed in on the is­sue is an at­tor­ney who be­lieves the ig­no­rance of cul­tur­al tra­di­tions is to blame for some of the rules which gov­ern both the busi­ness sec­tor and ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions.

At­tor­ney and African cul­tur­al ac­tivist Tem­pu Ne­fer­tari said she is ad­vo­cat­ing for teach­ers to be ed­u­cat­ed on cul­tur­al norms.

Speak­ing at a dis­cus­sion on African Hair Po­lice held at NALIS this week, she said, “We have adults who are sup­posed to be ed­u­cat­ed, who func­tion in the role of teach­ers, who don’t ed­u­cate them­selves about tra­di­tions and don’t un­der­stand the im­por­tance of re­spect­ing bound­aries, and that is a poor re­flec­tion on the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.”

Ne­fe­teri added, “It is very clear that peo­ple of African de­scent are not as sta­ble as the oth­er eth­nic groups and the ques­tion is, why are they not?”

She said while there must be dis­ci­pline, there must al­so be a lev­el of ac­cep­tance.

“When you are be­ing bat­tered down and op­pressed in a school sys­tem when you are not al­lowed to be dig­ni­fied in your cul­tur­al ex­pres­sion with­in the rules. No­body is say­ing that rules should not reign and dis­ci­pline is not im­por­tant but at the same time there must be cul­tur­al tol­er­ance.”

The ac­tivist added the time for an of­fi­cial pol­i­cy is now over­due. “A pol­i­cy on ed­u­ca­tion will ad­dress the im­por­tance of cul­tur­al tol­er­ance even in schools. And that teach­ers should be ed­u­cat­ed as to the nec­es­sary re­spect that should be giv­en to all eth­nic­i­ties, what is per­mit­ted and what are the bound­aries.”

And Ak­ende Rud­der of the Tra­di­tion­al African Women’s Or­gan­i­sa­tion said that Afro-Trinida­di­ans are be­ing un­fair­ly tar­get­ed.

“Yes we are a mul­ti­cul­tur­al so­ci­ety but we are the on­ly ones who are tar­get­ed we are the on­ly ones who have to keep ex­plain­ing our­selves, why do we have to ex­plain the hair that the Cre­ator gifts us with.”