Thai students hair rule gets the chop

[michaelr]

The school term in Thailand starts again tomorrow or next weeks for some schools, and there has been breaking news that students don't need to cut their hair any longer.

These new regulations has not reached the teachers, and I had an argument with the local school teacher (upcountry). He had not been informed of such changes, and said he would punish students coming to school with long hair.

The Thai teacher has read the article together with me, but he still does not belive it!

Anyone can point me to any news article or similar in Thai on the Internet, so I can prove that this in fact is a new regulation?

Or is the BBC article false? Thanks in advance for an urgent weblink to relevant facts.

Thai hair rule gets the chop

 

Thailand has decided to abandon a rule stipulating that school children must have short hair, an official said on Tuesday.

The decades-old rule states that boys should have military-style cropped hair, and girls should have hair no longer than the earlobes.

The rule was first imposed more than 50 years ago, when Thailand was governed by the military.

But a spokesman for Thailand's education ministry acknowledged on Tuesday that times had changed.

"Adults have to open their minds to the fact that even young boys and girls also want to look good," Khamol Rodklai told the Associated Press news agency.

For many of the 10 million children affected by the rule, change is long overdue.

"I like this new regulation very much, because the old one was boring," one nine-year-old girl told the BBC World Today programme.

"When students performed on stage and the teachers didn't let them have long hair, they'd just be ugly," she said.

Khamol Rodklai said the education ministry had made the decision after receiving numerous complaints from students and their parents.

The new regulation will come into affect when the next school term starts on 16 May.

"From now on you will no longer see the teachers standing at the gate with rulers to measure the hair of pupils," Khamol Rodklai said.

Caption: Even girls had to keep their hair short under the strict rules

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3004733.stm

[lopburi3]

All schools now have the right to set whatever standard they wish was the reading I got from the Bangkok Post report.  So you will have to take it up with the school management if that is the case.  I don't expect many schools upcountry will be changing this year if they can put off until next.

[pschef]

I seem to remember it was the prime minister who made the statement that the rules for a students hair was old fasioned, but he was referering to a girl in a universerty. He did however ask the school principle to change his old fasioned rules. I agree even if the rule has been changed? it will take up country schools longer to catch up, as in everything.

[Thetyim]

My daughter went back to school yesterday.

Still the same old rules up here in Phrae which is a pity because she gets picked on for haircuts because she has "falang" coloured hair.