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Tokyo schools drop controversial dress code on hair and underwear color
For many years, being a scholar in Tokyo meant you needed to look a sure means. Beneath the general public faculty system’s costume code, all college students needed to dye their hair black, sure hairstyles had been prohibited and even their underwear needed to be a chosen shade.
However these guidelines, which have lately come underneath scrutiny and been criticized as outdated, will now be abolished, the town’s authorities introduced this week.
Different guidelines being minimize embrace the follow of punishing college students with a type of home arrest, and ambiguous language within the pointers on what is taken into account “typical of highschool college students.”
The coverage adjustments go into impact initially of the brand new tutorial yr on April 1. The transfer got here after Tokyo’s board of schooling performed a survey final yr that requested colleges, college students and fogeys about their views on the insurance policies.
Tokyo is not the one Japanese metropolis with a strict costume code — related guidelines are in impact across the nation, with many colleges requiring college students to put on footwear and socks of a chosen shade.
Like Tokyo, Fukuoka performed a public survey final yr, during which college students complained that the costume code triggered them stress and restricted their self-expression, Asahi reported.
The problem was thrust into the highlight in 2017 when a highschool scholar in Osaka prefecture sued her faculty, a case that attracted nationwide consideration and prompted widespread public debate on restrictive costume codes.
Her lawsuit complained that the frequent coloring had broken her hair and scalp, and triggered her psychological misery. Final yr, she received 330,000 yen (about $2,790) in damages.
Different college students and households have since spoken out with related complaints, whereas a number of colleges have introduced adjustments to their costume codes.
This text was up to date to make clear that April 1 is the beginning of a brand new tutorial yr and that Asahi Shimbun is a Japanese newspaper.