Subjecting policies and laws to review is always good. That is how societies, companies, organisations, and people in general ensure that they are able to respond to issues as they arise and make changes, where necessary, to in response to shifts in culture and modern development.

Those changes, though, should not be made at the expense of proper values and principles. That, we suspect, is at the root of the Ministry of Education’s consultation session on the Draft Students’ Dress and Grooming Policy in Public Educational Institutions held this week at Jamaica College.

We are not sure why the policy was described as a draft, given that in August 2018 the ministry had released it as a final position.

At the time, the ministry stated that the objectives of the new guidelines were to ensure that all public education institutions have documented student dress codes in keeping with the national policy guidelines; increase levels of participation of stakeholders, especially students, in the development and revision of student dress codes; increase public awareness of the importance of having a documented student dress code; and, increase compliance with student dress codes.

Since then the issue of students dress and grooming have been raised intermittently, triggering lively debate across the country, with views varying from the reasonable to the extreme.

One of the issues that caught our attention at this week’s consultation was that raised by Ms Maxine Lewis, the principal of Essex Hall Primary School.

According to Ms Lewis, some parents are adamant about sending their boys to schools with plaited hair and knob earrings, and have even threatened the school’s administration for discouraging the practice.

“When you talk to those parents they are defiant. They are so defiant that they will even threaten you; they will not accept or abide by the rule,” Ms Lewis disclosed. “Even the babies for the infant section are coming in with their hair like that and their ears are pierced; they put in the earrings and we are unable to stop them, and sometimes the child might look like a girl and children will mistakenly call them a girl. The boy’s self-esteem is broken and sometimes the boy’s pride is broken, but the parents are still defiant,” she said.

She then made the point that the school can’t send the boys home, “because they are babies”, but she asked a most appropriate question: “What do we do, as an institution, when you have your guidelines in place?”

In response, Education Minister Ms Fayval Williams said more consultation sessions regarding dress and grooming need to be conducted with parents.

She is, of course, correct because what Principal Lewis described is really a breakdown in family values that encourage disregard for rules and regulations.

Parents have a duty to instil in their children characteristics that will contribute to their growth into responsible citizens. If more parents were so engaged in their children’s lives we would not be seeing so many instances of dysfunctional behaviour among students.

The ministry and our schools, which are designed to provide children with academic ability and life lessons for adulthood, have their jobs cut out for them. Our fervent hope is that they will succeed.