Should students wear uniforms?

A year ago I went to Mumbai for some work, after finishing which, I found myself in front of the Versova Mumbai metro station. I had nothing to do apart from returning to my hotel room and have dinner so I thought of taking a ride in the young 4 years old metro rail from Versova to Ghatkopar.

I took the return ticket and found my train ready to depart from the platform. I rushed and boarded it before the two air doors met with each other to shut us in for a ride.

Being a Saturday, the train was not crowded, so I easily got my seat. I was enjoying my metro ride. After a couple of minutes, I saw the train entering the D.N.Nagar station where a lady holding the left hand of her kid firmly, got in the train.

The kid seemed to be around 6 years old and was wearing his school uniform.

The lady sat in the bench right in front of me with her kid slumping in the same bench beside her. There was one thing peculiar about the boy – he had a big circular blot of ink on his shirt in the left chest area.

The lady seemed totally upset and even with my limited intelligence, I figured out that the big blot of ink was the reason of her being upset.

She said in anger to her son, “This stain will not go off, it’s impossible. We will have to buy you a new shirt.”

Her son replied in innocence, ”Mama, I will stop wearing the uniform that way you won’t have to buy me a new shirt. I will go to school wearing the yellow t-shirt you gifted me on my birthday.”

Hearing the reply, the lady’s anger vanished and she gave a big smirk to her kid and then out of love she hugged him tightly.

The mother-son moment was worth watching and it made me keep smiling on my entire journey, however, it gave birth to a new question in my head – Should students wear uniforms?

I will not be Judgmental

I am no judge and believe me I try everything I can to not judge any person or matter even subconsciously. I will continue the same practice here to.

‘Should students wear uniforms in school or not?’, I leave it to the readers of bx-zone.com to judge and drop your opinions in the comments section.

Yes or no, it is totally up to you. However, I will finish my job here of acquainting you with few reasons why there is a uniform culture in schools and colleges across the world.

Culture of Unity

You know when you see a group of children in school uniform standing together in the assembly area in school or playing together in a playground it depicts unity.

This, according to me, is the primary reason why school uniforms exist in the world.

Apart from history, science, math, social studies, a school’s moral obligation is to instill moral values in students so that they become good men and women in future.

When a nation has to grow, the main requirement is the unity among citizens and the earlier in life this value is taught to a human the better it is.

Uniforms give a strong moral message to students of primary, as well as high school that they are one, they must help each other and are driven by a common cause of providing good education to themselves.

Equality

Another major reason behind the culture of school uniforms is equality.

I am not overstating it but kids of rich dads and poor dads often go to the same school and sit in the same class. How proper education will be imparted to all the kids in the class if one of them wears a shirt worth 5000 bucks and super sneakers of the apex brand in the market worth 6 grand and another one wears a shirt worth 800 bucks and may wear the same pair of shoes which the kid spent last academic year in.

The morals will go awry here. A feeling of inferiority may sink in the heart of one and superiority in the heart of another.

This may lead to confidence loss in the case of former and over confidence in the case of latter. Both of which are never accepted in the years of cerebral development.

One major thing which also needs to be brought in light is that the rich kid can bully the not-so-rich one. This bullying doesn’t actually happen on just one day, it happens daily and you can totally imagine the shattering of confidence of the student being bullied.

Thus, for the sake of equality, the culture of uniforms exists.

Let’s keep fashion for the age > 20

Distractions need to be avoided at all cost in a student’s life. It doesn’t mean that they must not be allowed to go to movies or to the soccer field but it means that not to bring something in life which may force you to go down the wrong road.

Putting on those red sneakers along with highly fashionable turtle neck black t-shirt can make you cool for a day but it can also pick your focus from the subject of science and put it in fashion.

Focus in long term is important which is a reason good enough schools think that why students should wear uniforms.

Students Discipline

It is widely believed that discipline is the key to success. It is another value along with patience which must be instilled in students from an early age.

School uniforms introduce discipline to students. They learn subconsciously to stay within the limits crossing which, they can fall into an incorrect culture.

Uniforms also represent the institution. They teach students to align themselves with the main motto of the institution which is always to develop them into good human beings. You know you can be a good engineer, good doctor, good scientist or a good lawyer but discipline makes you a great engineer, great doctor, great scientist and a great lawyer.

Schools believe that uniforms inculcates discipline among students.

Buy a set of uniform and don’t bother

I am placing this reason in the last because I think that it’s not a substantial one or may be it is (do eliminate my confusion by commenting on it).

The day of a lady who is a mom is not easy. Of all the household tasks along with office work, if she is given the facility of not having to wash 5 pairs of clothes of her child then it’s a teeny tiny relief for her.

You know what gives her this relief - school uni forms.

At mid week or at the end of week, she just has to wash a single pair of clothes of her child rather than 5. Don’t take me wrong that I haven’t thought that the kid is not going to wear school uniform all day.

The point is that there will be less wear and tear of the clothes of the kid when he/she has to wear school or college uniform.

I have listed many reasons in this article on ‘Should students wear school uniforms?’

Let us know what you think of them? I gave a serious thought to this question which confronted me in Mumbai metro and could think of few reasons.

Also, I had to consult with so many of my friends for brainstorming which helped gain a couple of more.

However, I still believe the onus is on you to provide me the answer of the question asked in the title - (Yes/No).

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