How on Earth can hairstyles still be an issue at schools?

On Mandela Day, a group of girls at Pretoria High School for Girls held a protest to highlight alleged racism that they experienced at the school. According to these pupils, racist messages were spread by some matrics through a WhatsApp group and despite complaints to the school, little or nothing was done. They also complained that they were not allowed to speak in their own mother tongue during breaks and style their natural hair.

I was totally gobsmacked when I read this. The issues of hair and language were raised in 2016 and in 2020 and received global media attention. How on Earth is it possible that the governing body and teachers have still not sorted this out? It just boggles my mind how it is possible that 30 years after democracy and eight years after this was first raised, black pupils still experience discrimination and feel unwelcome.  

I’m also certain that the experiences of the pupils at PHSG are not unique. 

Many of the old model C schools still have an attitude of “us and them”. Either overtly or through acts of omission (i.e. changing school policies), they seem to say: “You are welcome into our (white) school, but you must play according to our (white) rules and abide by our (white) culture.” Not a far cry from the painful past of Catholic missionary teachers in Africa, insisting on children becoming Catholics, dressing in Western clothes and taking European names. 

I could only find PHSG’s 2015/16 code of conduct online and to be fair it does make provision for braids, cornrows and natural dreadlocks, but with certain restrictions. I also recall the issue back in 2016 was about Afros specifically. 

What struck me was that the code – with detailed prescriptions from the length of the uniform above the knee to the type of underwear allowed – could have been a carbon copy of my school’s rule book almost 40 years ago. Times have changed and, surely, so should the rules.

Read more: What’s going on hair?

The argument is often made that conformity in terms of uniform and general appearance is a requirement for good discipline. My children spent most of their schooling years in Ireland. They wore school uniforms, as most kids in that country do, but hair could be worn whichever way they wanted. Make-up was discouraged, but still worn and little fuss was made about skirt lengths, or jewellery. Does the whole of Ireland have badly disciplined children because of that? Of course not. 

There were also children from all nationalities at their schools and siblings and friends spoke to one another in their mother tongue. I would have been furious if my children were punished for speaking to each other in Afrikaans during break. And that was in a country where English is the official language, unlike ours, which constitutionally recognises 12 official languages. Instead of discouraging students from speaking in their mother tongue we should rather question why, so long after our transition, the white scholars still can’t speak or understand the predominant African language in their area.

Read more: HairGate Rebooted: Another Gauteng school penalises black girls because of their hair

We must do better and there should be no space in South Africa today for environments where young people feel that they constantly have to conform to what they experience as white public norms out of fear of punishment. 

As in 2016, I am filled with admiration for the young women who took up the battle last week, but I am also furious. This should not be their battle to fight. Schools should be happy, safe learning environments, not places of sadness, fear and pain. 

In response to media inquiries the school issued a press statement which said, among other things: “Pretoria High School for Girls… is committed to taking a firm stand against any form of misconduct, in line with the school’s code of conduct… While immediate steps are being taken to address concerns, the outcomes may take longer.”

Presumably the “misconduct” refers to the allegations of racist WhatsApp messages. As it turns out they didn’t take much time and in the past week 12 matrics have been suspended, raising issues around procedural fairness.  Clearly the issues go far deeper than a WhatsApp group. It seems to me that the girls who protested raised many of the same institutional issues from 2016 – which should have been addressed a long time ago. DM