Chulalongkorn University says students can ditch their uniforms

After growing pressure online from students, Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Law has agreed to do away with mandatory student uniforms. Education authorities have been hotly debating whether to relax the rules of attire for students across the country, and this decision by the law faculty of Thailand’s oldest university might help sway policy nationwide.

A university lecturer announced the uniform decision yesterday in a post on Facebook stating that the mandatory dress code had been overturned with all 14 law lecturers on faculty agreeing to the repeal. They had signed a letter to the dean saying they will allow their students to drop uniforms as long as they dressed respectfully in class.

The post explained that ditching the uniforms and wearing their clothes would have no negative effect on the classroom or curriculum and students could be free to dress as they like. The Facebook post called that freedom guaranteed by the Constitution.

The 14 law professors at Chulalongkorn University unanimously agreed that they, as teachers, should be able to teach effectively within the classroom, regardless of what clothes their students are wearing. They explained that not wearing a uniform shouldn’t have any effect on a student’s ability to study.

“In summary, the letter says that all the lecturers agreed students should be free to dress as they like, which is a freedom guaranteed by the Constitution. As a result, all 14 lecturers of the Chulalongkorn University Law Faculty, including me, jointly drafted the memo permitting undergraduate students to wear either uniforms or polite clothes to attend lectures.”

The change of attitude towards uniforms is especially significant coming from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand’s oldest university, founded in 1917, as their uniform sister at the model for other universities to adopt when creating their dress codes for decades.

After only four hours of posting, it had been shared 130 times, with 17 comments and 580 likes, suggesting that the move is quite popular, at least among those who are active online.

SOURCE: National News Bureau of Thailand