SCHOOL UNIFORMS are sacred and should not be at “back-to-school fetes” covering gyrating bodies.That was the word yesterday from Minister of Education Ronald Jones.He was making reference to the practice around the Crop-Over period when organisers stage Back-To-School Fetes and encourage current and especially former students to wear their school colours to the event. One such fete was staged at Kensington Oval on July 14.Addressing graduating teachers at the closing ceremony of the Teachers’ Introductory Course at Erdiston Teachers’ Training College, Jones said there were people like himself who still had their old uniforms properly secured at their homes for posterity.“. . . Because of the profound respect I had for the uniform of my school, I am not wearing that to any fete, before school, after school, or even during school, especially during vacation; unless it was a special programme organised by my school where you ask the students to turn up in their uniforms. “How far we have drifted. The kind of respect we hold to certain symbols that give us authority, that give us presence in our schools. There are so many things that people can do to enjoy themselves. I want them to leave the uniforms alone. I want them to leave the uniforms for the symbols of the schools,” Jones said.The minister said there were people who came to the region from other cultures where uniforms were not worn. He noted they were often very complimentary when they saw Caribbean children dressed in their uniforms. On their return home, he added, they tried to implement similar systems. “I have seen it in North America – the United States particularly. They learn from us, they copy from us, those positive systems. So do not let us bastardise them,” he pleaded.Jones said children watched the behaviour of adults, including teachers, and thus great care had to be taken with the messages that were communicated to their youthful and fragile minds.Jones has gained support from prominent Anglican cleric Reverend Errington Massiah.Massiah, rector of St Joseph Parish Church, said yesterday though Barbadians lived in a democracy and could claim they had the right to spend their money as they liked, people who used uniforms in such a fashion made a mockery of their schools and the educational system.Referring to the Kensington Oval fete, he said: “To see one of the patrons dressed as a nun is also a total mockery of religion, Christianity and the church.”He added: “What can we do now, when our leaders are wearing school uniforms to fetes?”
