Students in Uganda Strike Over Miniskirt Ban

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Strikes have become pretty much the norm in Nigeria – it’s just a parade of strikes in higher educations. Teaching staff go on strike due to unmet demands, students strike due to unnecessary increase in school fees, non-teaching staff go on strike due to salary backlog. It just goes on and on. It doesn’t even come as a shock when a higher education for one reason or another shuts down the school.

On the other hand, hearing that students in a secondary school resulted to violent demonstrations and destruction of school properties calls for a pause. A school in Uganda – Aduku Secondary School, Apac District, recently sent home over 1300 students for engaging in violent strike.

Seeing this kind of news, you want to think that these secondary school students had to have a pretty good reason for resulting to violence and consequently destroying school property worth about Shs 100 million.

School authorities said the last Saturday night strike was sparked off by a ban on wearing of mini-skirts and tight trousers

That’s the pretty good reason they had to destroy tons of school property. They wanted to wear short skirts and tight trousers. In Nigerian higher educations, you would be completely withdrawn from the school for engaging in violent demonstrations – what we call ALUTA.

Aduku secondary school is Anglican founded so it’s pretty understandable that they don’t want (probably underage) students walking around in revealing clothing. And if you choose to go to a school founded by a church, you have to be willing to play by their rules. What would secondary school girls want to wear miniskirts for anyway? You can always wear them when you are on holidays, when you graduate and for the rest of the days till you die.

“Last week, the school administration confiscated all mini-skirts and tight trousers, a move which reportedly annoyed the students. Aduku SS is an Anglican-founded mixed O and A-level boarding school.”

Apparently, the students fashion sense wasn’t the only reason they went on strike. They also were not comfortable with the kind of food they were served and the fact that they had to rise early to eat it. Clearly these students belong in the palace lounging with the queen and not in boarding school

“Before the strike, the students had also claimed that they were not comfortable with having porridge for breakfast early in the morning at 6am, the time when they should still be enjoying their sleep.”

The headmaster, Mr Patrick Okwir Angula had issued a circular to the parents the previous term admonishing them to caution their wards about wearing inappropriate uniforms. The girls were making their skirts shorter and tighter while the boys were making their trousers tighter. It’s however unlikely that there was anything the parents could do as most of these students would resize their uniforms in school.

The strike was reportedly headed by 10 senior students who succeeded in bringing down a 300-meter fence. Asides the wall, the students also managed to break into the computer laboratory and destroy all the computers and window panes. All in the name of fashion.

 

Read the full news here

Image source: The Insider