The Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) on Monday placed a ban on male and female teachers from wearing jeans and t-shirts in educational institutions.
They have also been advised to maintain proper hygiene that includes a regular haircut, trimmed beard, use of perfume etc. According to FDE, this will impact the students positively and facilitate a healthy learning environment.
Whether it is focusing on women rather than holding men responsible for acts of sexual violence or blaming the use of mobiles, the PM seems to be singing off tune.
My issue isn’t the dress code or the significance of following some dress protocol but it’s the implicit sense of taking free will from individuals that alarms me.
How does creating a conservative and binding dress culture in educational institutions ensure that a ‘morally high’ value system will be instilled in the impressionable young students’ mind?
When the same student will step out of school and be exposed to all kinds of dress codes and choices, what do you think he will lean more towards? There will in fact be a greater attraction to the forbidden. What we resist, persists.
It is integral for an individual, especially an adult to be able to exert his free will. We all want choice in our lives and when that choice is taken away and we are controlled through stringent rules and regulations, it creates a sense of disempowerment and resentment within the self.
I will acknowledge that I was pleasantly surprised that the dress code was the same for both men and women and that’s a refreshing change. It would have been better if there was a balance in the dress code being implemented.
It could have been a mix of formal attire days and maybe one or two days of whatever anyone wants to wear. This way the rules would be better received as well as the freedom of choice given.
I would also invite the government to focus more on the behaviour of teachers towards students and not just pay attention to the semantics of how they are presented externally.
Every other day we hear about horrifying cases of corporal punishment being given to students and it’s a norm in all public schools. Those students would not care about how their teachers dress up. They want to feel safe and deserve respect and care from their teachers. That would impact them positively rather than dress codes. Encouraging teachers to focus on their personal appearance is a great initiative but the motive should not be moral policing.
As a country, we are always barking up the wrong tree. This ban might be the beginning of more rules and regulations to control the mindset of the people, which the government thinks will positively impact the mindset of the new generation and enforce higher morals.
Choice means conflict and it is only through conflict that growth is possible. Protecting young minds from the ‘bad’ so to speak will not ensure that they will want to choose ‘good’. In fact, there will be a greater hunger for the former because they will protest to the ‘good’ forced upon them.
Let the choice remain even within the confines of the systems being placed. My dear PM; light and dark co-exist and so does good and evil. Let there be choice! Rather than taking the choice away, work on facilitating the best form of ‘goodness’ so that one actually wants to walk towards it and away from what isn’t ‘good’!
Zara Maqbool
The writer is a UK-CPCAB (Counselling and Psycho therapy Awarding Body) certified individual and couple psycho therapist based in Islamabad. She can be reached at zaramaqbool
@yahoo.com
