tidings
Corey Connelly
TTUTA Tobago officer Bradon Roberts says that as far as he knows, there are no fixed rules in schools governing the hairstyle of students.
He also said he is not aware of any cases in which students have been sent home because of their hairstyles.
THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine, addressing the Emancipation celebrations at the Store Bay Heritage Park on Monday, urged Tobagonians to reject rules that stifle their creativity and development.
Augustine reminded them of the Democratic Progressive Patriots’ decision, in their first month in office, to get rid of what he called the “nonsensical dress code policy.”
He said that as an independent nation, TT is responsible for its own destiny.
“We have to go beyond the dress code, though, and we have to get to the place where we have to remove those ridiculous and blatant rules in our schools that somehow prevent our young women of color from excelling.
“We still live in a space where our sons and daughters are being sent home for afros, rows of cane – being sent home because their hair doesn’t fit the stereotype or the rules required by the white colonialists. We need to get those rules out of our schools.”
Augustini said he will not support school officials sending students home because of their hairstyles.
“If we have school superintendents and principals and teachers sending your boys and girls home because they have a little bump near the end of their hair, I say to you parents, I’ll stand with you in saying them. the teachers are not in the country.
“This is 2022, and if we don’t trust our skins, this year, when will we trust the castles of our skins.”
Roberts said, while he supports Augustine’s statement, “Those rules are not cemented or hard rules by any means.
“I don’t know that a child with Afro can be denied education.
“These are just some beliefs that have been passed down from principal to principal, from school management to school management as people change,” he told Newsday on Tuesday.
“So it’s not like today’s teachers just feel the need to follow such rules. This is the training we all went through. This is the culture we would have had.”
Roberts believes that more attention should be given to moral/ethical education or students.
“The focus should be on character so that students don’t become wild, where their hairstyle becomes a distraction. People express themselves differently.
“So we don’t want to limit someone’s expression, but expression shouldn’t be a distraction.”
Roberts also believes that too much attention is paid to things of little importance in the education system, for example, that students have the correct seat belt and wear all-black shoes.
“I understand the respect for the uniform and we can learn that, and be more determined with that in the moral and ethical way we encourage people, because that’s the direction the world has gone. Whether it’s right or wrong, we can’t fight it.”
But Roberts said schools can encourage rather than mandate students to do things.
“With education, people would make the right decision, which is education and not so much force.”
