Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Teachers also wear uniforms

I've been reading into circulars regarding the wearing of 'uniforms' in schools by teachers. You see, many schools are into getting the teachers to wear a 'uniform'; once a week and special occasions. And this has been going on for almost a decade. It's one of those things which I consider very silly cos... don't have to wear, beriya-iya want to.... waste money, everyone aping each other, no individuality... aiya! everyone looks the same!

In many schools these days, we have school administrators 'instructing' (and teachers comply cos boss says so) teachers to wear the same clothes... I shall use the term 'same clothes' as these 'clothes' differ from school to school. Thus School A can have a red batik motif clothes as its uniform while School B can have plain red clothes, for example. And the design would differ from one individual to another and school to school. And my grouse is, we are made to pay for the cloth as well as the tailoring. Just because people up there want it... for whatever purposes they may have in mind. Most of the time it's to make themselves look good to the even higher pihak atasan.

While the rationale given is that the 'same clothes' we wear would make us identifiable during functions, it isn't really something that is necessary. I mean, how many teachers do you find in a school... at most perhaps slightly over a hundred but the norm... anywhere from 50-70. It is not that difficult to make out who is who given the small number. Plus we are not made up of huge departments... But what this might create instead is business opportunities for certain individuals. And also, 'hardship' to the teachers as they would have to fork out money for cloth and tailoring; which sometimes can come up to quite a lot.

From the circulars, all they say is for those whom uniforms are not supplied, they should wear respectable looking clothes, nothing that is too revealing...

And here we have, trying to make all of us look alike on the outside..... it kinda reminds me of my days as juvenile, long ago, of how we had the tendency to ape our friends... then as we grow older.. we start to try to exert our own identity.. I wonder sometimes whether our educational institutions have regressed in its development? Monkey see, monkey do?

1 comment:

Thomas C B Chua said...

Random Shots, I loathe to be uniformed as a teacher. Why don't your "pihak atasan" CONCENTRATE more on producing better educational inputs for the pupils? Finely tuned "P & P" ( " T & L" ) materials to get the kids interested in their lessons. SIC

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