Thai hair rule gets the chop

BBC, 7th May 2003

Even girls had to keep their hair short under the strict rules
Thailand has decided to abandon a rule stipulating that school children must have short hair, an official said on Tuesday.

The decades-old rule states that boys should have military-style cropped hair, and girls should have hair no longer than the earlobes.

The rule was first imposed more than 50 years ago, when Thailand was governed by the military.

But a spokesman for Thailand's education ministry acknowledged on Tuesday that times had changed.

"Adults have to open their minds to the fact that even young boys and girls also want to look good," Khamol Rodklai told the Associated Press news agency.

For many of the 10 million children affected by the rule, change is long overdue.

"I like this new regulation very much, because the old one was boring," one nine-year-old girl told the BBC World Today programme.

"When students performed on stage and the teachers didn't let them have long hair, they'd just be ugly," she said.

Khamol Rodklai said the education ministry had made the decision after receiving numerous complaints from students and their parents.

The new regulation will come into affect when the next school term starts on 16 May.

"From now on you will no longer see the teachers standing at the gate with rulers to measure the hair of pupils," Khamol Rodklai said.