I retired from teaching at government schools over 20 years ago.
But, even when I first began my career in education I had complained numerous times, in this very media, that school uniforms were another colonial import.
School uniforms do not figure positively enough to be considered mandatory in a learning environment.
Many other writers thought my idea was crazy, pointing to the fact that privileged pupils would use their wealth to convert school into a fashion parade.
I argued there were other ways some pupils could show off. For example, by owning better stationary, or being driven to school in flashy cars, or owning costly lunch boxes and maths sets.
This is still a capitalist society. Many a schoolboy emerges from a hut, adjacent to a five-star mansion from whence his classmate hails! Grey areas merge all over.
“Pupils will get lost during excursions” was another reason put forward by many brainwashed principals and teachers.
What excursions happen nowadays? Never mind that. Capitalists over the years continued raising the bar of profiteering.
Schools too, have still not realised that costly functions in the name of fundraising, such as matric balls, stresses 90 percent of the population beyond sane limits.
Even some projects in primary and high school syllabuses make totally unnecessary demands on poverty stricken parents. Most are not really the pupils' own effort!
My classmates (we numbered 50 to a class) were mostly grandchildren of the original indentured Indians. It's time we all get real about the purpose of school uniforms.
* Ebrahim Essa, Durban.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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