DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) and the An­ju­man Sun­nat ul Jam­mat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA) are both in sup­port of the New Na­tion­al School Hair Code.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) pub­lished a pro­pos­al on Thurs­day which has ef­fec­tive­ly widened the op­tions for stu­dents.

This fol­lows the de­ci­sion of the An­gli­can Board on June 27 to pre­vent 23 boys from ful­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in their grad­u­a­tion be­cause of their hair­styles.

Un­der the min­istry’s pro­pos­al, stu­dents should main­tain neat and tidy hair. The pol­i­cy goes fur­ther to state that boys and girls are al­lowed to grow their hair but it must be kept back. Locs, twists, plaits, afros and corn­rows are al­lowed for all stu­dents. Girls can wear hair ex­ten­sions ex­cept for wigs. There will, how­ev­er, be ex­cep­tions in cer­tain cir­cum­stances. Hair dye and in­tri­cate de­signs aren’t al­lowed for boys and this in­cludes their eye­brows.

Schools still have the au­ton­o­my to tai­lor their rules to the guide­lines.

“This is a pos­i­tive step in the right di­rec­tion. We take note that the pol­i­cy is broad enough to al­low for schools to have an in­put. It is not too pre­scrip­tive,” said pres­i­dent of TTUTA Mar­tin Lum Kin.

Mean­while, AS­JA said it will use the pro­pos­al as a spring­board to cre­ate its own guide­lines.

“We com­mend­ed the MoE for tak­ing the bull by the horns. This mat­ter should have been dealt with a lit­tle while back now. It should not have—an in­ci­dent should not have hap­pened for such ac­tion would have been tak­en,” AS­JA said.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the An­gli­can Board of Ed­u­ca­tion, which over­sees Trin­i­ty Col­lege, Mo­ka, was not present at the vir­tu­al stake­hold­er meet­ing with Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly on Thurs­day.

Dean and Rec­tor of the Cathe­dral Church of The Holy Trin­i­ty Dr Shel­ley-Ann Tenia, who chairs the board, did not re­spond to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia on the in­sti­tu­tion’s po­si­tion on the pol­i­cy.

The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) ob­ject­ed to the pro­pos­al in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day. The Catholic Board wel­comed it.