Wow This is Stupid
MONROVIA, Liberia: The attempt to bring normalcy back to this war-recovering West African country was extended to girls' hairstyles Friday with a nationwide ban on weaves or hair extensions for students, education officials said.
"Things are rapidly going out of hand and we have to arrest the situation," said Education Minister Joseph Korto. "Girls wearing weaves and attachments pay more attention to their looks than to their lesson."
The penalty for breaking the rules is a US$1,000 (€735) fine.
Full story.
posted by Josh Nice at Saturday, August 25, 2007
3 Comments:
This guy hasn't got a clue about what a Minister of Education should be doing. Banning saggy pants for boys and hair extensions for girls should be the least of his worries. When EJS said more changes in her cabinet can be expected, I doubt he will survive the second round of changes.
Obviously, students being in class with low-slung baggy pants may not be desirable but this should be left with school administrators. About his nonsensical comments on girls taking countless bathroom breaks to adjust their hair extensions, I don't see how that is any of his business.
His focus should be on reopening the TTIs (Teacher Training Institutes) across the country to have teachers in the classroom who know what the heck they are doing.
The Church-run schools in Liberia have always had a strict dress code. I do not think that is why their schools are consistently the best-performing schools. As an alumnus of a church-run school, I think our school's performance had more to do with the quality of instruction. He cannot take the dress code of the church-run schools and impose it on public school students.
Worse, I don't think hair extensions is really an issue in public schools anyway. In the first place, how many public school students can afford them? He is perhaps running out of useful ideas to improve the public schools.
A city council man from Atlanta, of all places, is contemplating proposing a ban on low-slung baggy pants - I don't know where these people come up with these crazy ideas. Arresting people in Atlanta for wearing sagging pants is sure to keep the cops busy. You would think the cops could better use their time chasing gang members engaging in countless drive-by shootings.
Well, my friend...drastic times call for drastic actions. How do you know school administrators aren't complaining to the Minister about run-away disciplinary problems in public schools? Yes, there are more important things that he could be doing, but discipline in public schools is not mutually exclusive of other prerogatives. If we spend less time critiquing and more time taking action, then we would be able to resolve the many challenges facing our country. And by the way, have you contributed to the Liberian Education Trust http://www.liberianeducationtrust.org/? If not, please do because I have made my contribution of $200 to help build more schools and train teachers. It's fine to be critical, but we must also try to make a difference.
Hello from BBC's radio programme World Have Your Say. We're planning to visit this topic within the next few days on our live show broadcast out of London. I'd be interested to hear from you, as we're trying to get views out of Liberia.
Shoot me an e-mail at Lin.Liu@bbc.co.uk if you'd be interested in joining the conversation.
Cheers!
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