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April 28, 2010

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School bars girls for look of haircut

A MIDDLE school in northeastern China's Jilin Province has shut students out of class unless they have haircuts acceptable to the school's standards, students complained.

Some students, all girls, were stranded outside the Ningjiang No. 5 Middle School in Songyuan City yesterday morning after being denied entry for failing to follow the school's new instruction on hairstyle announced last Friday, the New Culture newspaper reported.

The school's principal Zhang Wenbin said the school introduced the hair policy to encourage students to spend more time on study.

According to the standards, boys shall have very short hair. Girls shall have their hair cut to above their eyebrows and the shoulders with ears exposed.

But girls complain the hairstyle is too ugly. "That makes us look like boys," an unnamed girl student complained to the newspaper.

"The school failed to respect our feelings while giving such instruction."

The new hair policy doesn't apply to all 2,000 students in the school, however, according to a teacher.

Students with top academic performances can be spared, he disclosed.

Barbers at hair salons near the school said they have served many students over the past weekends. "Some girls weep for their long hair while having it cut," a barber said.

But most parents hailed the school's new hair standards.

"Students should look like plain students and the short hair saves much time in hair arrangement so that more time could be used for study," a parent told the newspaper.

The hairstyle encouraged for girl students was nationally popular in the 1950s as it was regarded as the model image of a Chinese woman. Nearly every woman had that hair style at the time.

The Ningjiang District Education Bureau said it asked the school to allow the students in to class before asking them to have the haircuts.

But officials said the school didn't breach any laws or rules to push the hair policy because there's no such regulation governing students' hair so far.

In the nation's Middle School Students Rules, boys are discouraged from having long hair. Girls are advised not to dye or curl their hair.


 

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