Respect grooming standards, minister tells students

Education Minister Chad Blackman is urging students across Barbados to respect the National School Grooming Policy, stressing that discipline and neatness remain core values of the island’s education system as concerns mount about declining standards of appearance.

Blackman announced that the ministry, with the support of student councils, would roll out a national campaign showing what was considered appropriate.

“We are going to be rolling out shortly, in partnership with our student councils from around the country, videos of what it must look like for students to see and emulate what discipline and deportment in 2026 and beyond must look like,” he said.

Addressing the St George Secondary School Speech Day on Friday, Blackman said he intended to make expectations clear as concerns continued about how students were presenting themselves in public spaces.

“I want to make it very plain that school is a place of discipline,” he said. “The way you carry your hair, young ladies, young ladies, school is a place of discipline. There is a time and a season for everything. Where you have vacation in Easter or summer or Christmas and you want to wear your hair like Rapunzel, go right ahead.”

Male students were also told that the policy applied equally to them. “Young men, same thing to you. God has blessed us with a superpower called kinked hair — it grows up, it does not grow down — natural, no problem; but it must not be that you roll out of bed [using a] piece of sponge on your hair and you are on the road looking [inappropriate].

No, it cannot work. Why? School is a place of excellence and discipline,” he said, with loud applause from the audience in agreement.

He added that the policy was intended to prepare students properly for the world of work. “What are we doing? Preparing you for the world — not just for a job, not just for CXCs and CAPE and City and Guilds — we are preparing you for the world. I want you to learn and master this part of your life that will forever determine your trajectory.”

Barbados introduced its National School Grooming Policy in January 2023 as a framework to reinforce neatness, respect and self-expression while setting common standards across public and private schools.

It permits styles such as cornrows and uncovered dreadlocks for boys once hair remains tidy. The policy has generated wide debate, particularly on social media and call-in radio programmes, where concerns have been raised that some girls were wearing hairstyles described as too “womanish” and that some boys were appearing unkempt.

The minister plans to ask principals to carry out checks to ensure students’ deportment remained compliant with the policy, he said.

“Principals around the country, I am saying this to you, and I will write to you and we will talk as well. The time has come, notwithstanding that we express ourselves as African people and we are natural here, it still must look tidy.”

He told the ceremony that he had personally intervened on several occasions when he observed students violating expected standards in public. “While driving my car I have seen some children from all schools — this is not any one school. I see them walking with their shirt outside, backpack half down the back with nothing inside, and I pull up and say: ‘Young man, what are you doing, does your mother know you look like this?’ ‘No, alright, sir’,” he recounted, stressing that self-expression should not be confused with disorder.

Blackman insisted that the wider society must support the effort to improve student conduct. He said: “But the country must know through love when they see children going the wrong path, of course, and correct them.

It cannot be the ministry alone, it cannot be the principals alone and the boards and the teachers. The country must now embrace the future of education through discipline.”

“And just like how tourism is everybody’s business, let us play our part; education is our business, and everybody must play their part. This is our gold, this is our treasure, this is our platinum, and we cannot play with it.”

Blackman said there needed to be a resurgence of traditional values, warning that punctuality and courtesy were essential in the transformed school environment. He noted that “punctuality will take you in the world, through the world” and stressed that young people must embrace basic courtesies such as “good morning, good afternoon, yes ma’am, yes sir, no thank you.”  (SZB)