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Students shut out of class until hair cut

A MIDDLE school in northeastern China's Jilin Province has shut students out of class unless they have hair cuts 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 not following the school's new instruction on hairstyle announced last Friday, today's Jilin-based 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 and 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."

Barbers at hair saloons 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 Ningjiang District Education Bureau said it has asked the school to allow the students in to class before asking them to have the hair cuts.

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 to have long hair while girl students are advised not to dye or curl their hair.

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

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

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.



 

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