Sat Maharaj, secretary general of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha, said yesterday when he spoke about a rasta hairstyle harbouring parasites, he was speaking about any unkempt hairdo, including dreadlocks.
Maharaj was clarifying comments he made about the rasta hairstyle of 13-year-old student Kalifa Logan.
Logan was prevented from attending the St Charles private school in Tunapuna because of her rasta hair. She is now attending the El Dorado Secondary School.
Maharaj, one of the 27 signatories of the Principles of Fairness, a recent initiative on racial tensions in the country, had sided with the principal of St Charles, Adriana Noel, and reiterated yesterday that it was the duty of the principal of a school to enforce the rules of the school.
He said a rasta hairdo "was more a hairstyle than a religious symbol", adding, "not because a fella has a rasta hairstyle means that he is a Rastafarian." Maharaj once again noted that the football association of Nigeria has banned rasta hairstyles and said Cameroon was about to do likewise. He said one reason for banning it was that the style encourages homosexuality.
But he added that the Logan incident was not the first occasion in which a student was debarred from a school because of a rasta hairstyle.
He quoted a 1986 newspaper story in which then principal of St Augustine Senior Comprehensive School, Osmond Downer, stopped a boy from going to school because of "a funny-looking hair style with something like a canal running around his head".
Maharaj described as unfortunate how certain commentators from outside the education system "jumped" into the controversy involving Logan.
He said one of the problems educators have in schools was the ability to properly manage the hairstyle of students.
He said, "so I never intended to portray the young student Kalifa Logan as a carrier of parasites," stressing, "any hairstyle not properly managed could also result in the breeding of parasites and transmission to other students.
And all schools would have rules regarding personal hygiene." Maharaj added, "We must remember that long ago at assembly time, teachers and principals would walk from child to child, examining their finger nails, their hair and their ears. This was in the interest of the total hygiene of the school and not aimed at any one particular child." Maharaj said the general indiscipline that characterises Trinidad and Tobago society has roots in school indiscipline.
He said the denominational schools could boast that they were the most disciplined and academically successful as witnessed by SEA and Advanced levels results.
According to Maharaj, "Most of the school indiscipline could be identified in the government secondary schools. This is because of the Ministry of Education interference in the ability of the principals to enforce the rules." He added: "The denominational schools have the church boards that make a tremendous input whereas at the Government run schools you lack the religious, cultural and moral input that the denominational schools have. That is a recognised fact."
