Parents are opposing a new regulation at John Paul II Primary School in Wau forcing girls to have their hair cut at the school.
School headmaster Santo Garang explained to Voice of Hope that the regulation was adopted to ban hair plating in the restrooms during school hours.He said the school administration in August alerted parents about the haircut campaign but parents complained that the practice was against their culture and humiliated the girls.
Mr Garang said the Parents and Teachers Association meetings were poorly attended and many times the pupils failed to convey the messages from the school administration to their guardians.
He noted that usually guardians acted only after regulations were adopted.
Mr Garang said some girls refused their hair to be cut but the administration was still waiting for their parents to convince them.
He explained that cutting the hair of school girls did not spoil their beauty but it differentiated who was a school girl and who was not.
In 2007, the ministry of Education in Western Bahr El Ghazal tried to implement the rule to force girl students to cut their hair but the community refused.
John Paul II is a Catholic private primary mixed school under the administration of Wau Diocese.