#OPINION | Unform the Uniform: Under the New Normal
by Rafa Escareal
Trigger warning: A section of this article discusses rape, sexual harassment, and pedophilia.
“In difficult times, fashion is always outrageous,” the iconic fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli once said.
The past months have been difficult for the entire world, primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent crises it brought about. As countries around the world go for different approaches to curb the spread of the virus, the majority of activities, especially involving going outside and meeting other people, have been moved inside the house. People currently rely almost exclusively on online means to do what used to be done outside — shopping, exercising, socializing, working.
Work-from-home policies have been prevalent since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic; even students had home-based learning opportunities and will continue to have for the upcoming school year.
However, in difficult times, fashion is indeed outrageous. Several schools around the country, notably private schools like Ateneo de Manila and Children of Mary Immaculate College in Valenzuela, have stated that students will be required to wear their school uniforms to their online classes this year. This was met with a lot of backlash from students on social media, and rightfully so. In the new normal for education, uniforms should be the last thing students and schools alike should think about.
A nationwide budget cut
The whole education system in the Philippines has recently faced large economic restraints. To support the now-expired Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, the budget allocation for the Department of Education (DepEd) was cut by 8.2 billion pesos, impairing the agency from implementing several of its programs. One such program is the Basic Education Inputs program, which helps in the construction of new school buildings and classrooms; another would be the Senior High School Voucher (SHSV) program, which helps Grade 10 students pursue senior high school tracks. In an appalling contrast, the government had just spent 70 billion pesos on war materials in the midst of a pandemic.
According to De Vera and Tan (2010), the cost of school uniforms in the Philippines is 500 pesos for the elementary level, and 600 pesos for the secondary level. This is much more pricey in private schools, where prices can reach 1000 pesos for the elementary level and 1400 pesos for the secondary. Policies in private schools are much stricter as well, compared to public schools, where school uniforms have not been required since 2008. This cost can multiply at least two or threefold, when families have to provide for several children.
Especially in a time when DepEd is in the process of implementing a blended learning strategy for the upcoming school year, the system should instead focus on providing the necessary modules and devices to students nationwide, especially those whose families are unable to provide these, especially because thousands or millions of jobs are affected during the pandemic. If DepEd is able to remove the physical and financial load of school uniforms and other unnecessary expenses from parents, then it in turn will also be able to make for necessary expenses such as its education programs.
Wardrobe unfunction
The school uniform, which schools show with pride as a symbol of identity and unity, would not even be that prided on when students and teachers are relegated to their homes, virtually unseen from the rest of the outside community. When classes would enter video calls for their classes, only the upper body or even the head would be seen by the teachers and classmates, which would discourage people from dressing the lower body with pants or skirts or the feet with leather shoes. Wearing these heavy clothes which are not exactly conducive to Philippine climate may be of great discomfort to students, who would have to wear the uniform 8 hours a day, 5 times a week.
Besides, when video calls are not necessary, students will be working on their requirements at their own pace. This is not a new practice, as students have been doing schoolwork at home since the start of the formal education system, and this is generally done without having to wear a school uniform.
During the pandemic, students will also have limited access to clothing and grooming stores, as millions of students, being underage, are still not allowed to go outside their homes. In addition, clothing stores, markets, and barbershops and salons are closed or very limited in areas under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ); they operate at only 30% capacity in areas under general community quarantine (GCQ) and 50% in areas under modified GCQ (MGCQ). Producers of clothing for uniforms and shoes are currently limited as well to avoid the spread of COVID-19 in their workplaces.
It is therefore pointless to regularly check whether students are wearing the proper undershirt or shoes or sporting the 2x3 haircut, especially because students may lack complete access to clothing and grooming. Reprimanding non-compliance will make even less sense, given that compliance is already difficult in itself.
A common notion when it comes to working from home is that one must follow a strict uniform or dress code to work or to school even at home in order to gain a semblance of normalcy and a sense of urgency. Parents, guardians, and even school administrations suggest wearing uniforms in order to improve their achievement. However, studies may suggest otherwise. Sharkey (2000) studied human resource employees in American companies and showed that the employee morale was boosted when dress codes became more casual. Yeung (2009) and Sowell (2012) showed that there is no clear correlation between school uniforms and achieving high scores in tests.
Given that schools such as PSHS promote the school uniform to “develop in the student simplicity and practicality,” it is very ironic that the administration implements complicated rules on the school uniform down to the color and the cloth of the uniform, the amount of accessories or makeup, or the length of hair and garments. It will also be impractical to implement these rules, more so during online or blended learning modes.
If the schools aim for its students to be practical in terms of clothing, it should allow for them to wear whatever they want, including accessories, makeup, and hair. After all, it is more practical for the person to set their own fashion standards than an institution to do it for them.
Freedom at home
As students start doing their day-to-day activities at home, students must be free to wear what they want in the comfort of their own dwellings. As students, especially adolescents and teenagers, are learning to establish their identity, home should be a place where they are free to experiment with their clothing as well as their accessories, which they now have full access to. Even education should not be a hindrance to the clothes they choose to wear.
If schools implement uniform policies for their students for online or blended learning modes, they will do further damage to the already blurred lines between the workplace and the home, which many consider to be personal spaces. The mere fact that organizations and institutions (such as schools) have complex rules and norms for online communications may harm the well-being of its students as well as their relationships with other people at home, due to the transitions that they have to make in between different aspects of their lives (Becker, Belkin, & Tuskey, 2018).
Especially when learning becomes more self-paced, students should not feel restricted by norms that schools implement, including uniforms. Instead, they should be able to wear what feels best for them to do their work in, wherever and whenever they can do their work in.
Although the implementation of school uniforms can be considered constitutional, especially for the reasons they are implemented (Littlefield vs. Forney Ind. School District, 2000), schools and parents alike should note that the freedoms of students in terms of clothing should not be restricted, and in fact, be encouraged, especially for adolescents and teenagers who have a greater grasp of their freedom of expression, specifically their substantive expression. According to Vopat (2010), “[s]ubstantive expression occurs when an individual performs an intentional act which they desire others to recognize as an intentional act of expression.”
It is worth noting that this substantive expression has been and is being used especially by the youth to make statements on notable current events and political situations. One example in the United States was in December 1965, where a group of high school students in Des Moines, Iowa wore black armbands to school in protest of the Vietnam War. Their subsequent suspension resulted in a landmark case about free expression in the US Supreme Court.
An example much closer to home happened in PSHS-MC in November 2016, shortly after the burial of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, where students and faculty wore black shirts or bands to school, leading to a Unity March on the end of that day.
Schools and parents must consider the preferences of students on dressing, in and out of school, and now especially considering the aforementioned restrictions the pandemic already holds in terms of clothing and grooming. Whatever students choose to wear, whether it be upper or lower garments, accessories, makeup, even hair; and may it be for personal preferences or political statements, can be seen as a manifestation of their substantive expression, which ultimately must not be restricted by any person or institution.
Something not about clothing
One of the most important discussions regarding clothing is the culture of sexual harassment. The rise of the #HijaAko movement last month, which begun as the result of a Twitter conversation between singer Frankie Pangilinan and TV personality Ben Tulfo over the effect of clothing on rape culture, has spawned several online movements across schools calling for the accountability of the schools and several of their faculty accused of sexually harassing underage students.
Stories, exhibits, and even studies have already shown that clothing does not affect the culture and the mindset of rape. Such is presented by Johnson and Lee (2000), where participants studying an alleged date rape case did not perceive clothing as relevant to the occurrence. School uniforms, which are traditionally modest, are no exception to this culture, as presented by the students of Miriam College, St. Paul College — Pasig, St. Theresa’s College, and Marikina Science High School.
In the light of this movement, schools should not teach students to dress modestly (with school uniforms) in order to “fulfill their obligations without unnecessary distractions.” The #HijaAko movement and its subsequent school movements such as #MCHSDOBETTER are the most recent proof that sexual harassment can occur even in workplaces and schools, even when wearing supposedly “modest”-looking clothes such as uniforms. Instead, schools should hold their teachers accountable, especially for their sexual advances and harassments to their students. It is equally important as well for schools to teach their students to dress freely according to their preferences and gender identity, and to instill morals and values of decency and respect for others, regardless of their clothing and expression.
The old and the new
The school uniform is undoubtedly an old practice, dating back to 1552 in Christ’s Hospital in England. But we could also say that the school uniform is an outdated practice. The thinking that school uniforms will improve academic performance or discipline is already disproved (Brunsma and Rocquemore, 1998). And now that we are moving into a “new normal” for education, uniforms will become even less relevant to student learning.
However, not wearing uniforms at home isn’t a new practice, either. Aside from students doing homeworks mentioned above, homeschooling students have always been studying without the burden of having to wear a school uniform everyday. It is in this new normal that this culture could be even more normalized in traditional schooling setups.
Now that learning is currently happening or will happen primarily through online modes, school administrations should consider revising or repealing their uniform policies altogether, for the benefit of the school systems, the parents, and the students themselves.
And moving forward, when the pandemic situation lightens up and we return to a blended or even a full face-to-face learning, why would we need to overemphasize on outdated policies like the school uniform, when we’ve shown and we can continue to show that we are capable of learning at home and in school without it? Especially as the pandemic forced cities worldwide to rethink how people move around, promoting and reinstating walking and biking as transport modes, we need to be able to move around both comfortably and safely. We need to look beyond the school uniform and into other more flexible dress codes that are welcome to all, considering other safety attire such as face masks and shields as well.
However, pandemic or not, we need to continuously adapt to new normals, and that means we have to readjust our approaches towards teaching and studying. We have to rethink what is really essential in the field of education. And the school uniform isn’t one of those.
Edit: This article has been updated to reflect the links to the references cited in the article.
Note: This article is a sequel to “Unform the Uniform” which was published by The Science Scholar on January 7, 2020.
