Why must Ghanaian school girls cut down their hair ?

I have always had a problem with why Ghanaian Girls must cut down their hair at the SHS, or if in a public school, at the primary and JHS levels. I mean, what is the benefit of girls cutting down their hair because they are in school?

It baffles me to know that the Europeans, whom we so blindly copy from, do not demand that their school children cut down their hair. Even if a Ghanaian girl should go to a school in America, today, she won’t be asked to cut down her hair and Ghanaian girls in private and so-called ‘international’ schools are allowed to keep their hair at the basic school. So why do we ask our girls to lower their self esteem because they are at a certain level of schooling?

And so as typical of my curious self, I asked. I asked teachers and head teachers and parents. I asked why girls must cut down their hair in basic and high school. Why can’t it be a matter of choice rather than a rule. You can only imagine the funny answers I got.

One school of thought asserts that not all girls come from homes affluent enough to give them a hairdo and to keep it well. Thus, if girls are allowed to do their hair in basic and high schools, it has a tendency of breeding envy and jealousy among the girls from less affluent homes. Really? That’s their best shot? OK.

Another section of my interviewees actually have concocted a scientific study that claims that too much hair on the head makes students daft. Jeez!! I’m still wondering how the Americans and Europeans have their girls doing marvelously well in school.

It would surprise you to know that this ‘school girls must cut down their hair’ phenomenon is not a written rule in our constitution or a Ghana Education Service policy.

My online historical studies have actually revealed that, Africans in general and west Africans in particular placed a lot of value on the hair of a woman and as such used to keep their hair in various mouth watering styles. The hair of the West African woman was a symbol of beauty, a crown of womanhood and indication of health status. The African Woman’s hair was a great communicator. The hairstyle determined age, social and royal rank and place of origin. The African woman knew and treasured only her natural hair. Some kept their hair as long as to the waist or the buttocks.

Unfortunately, upon the advent of the European on our soils and at the beginning of colonialism, the Europeans realised that the African Woman’s hair was very important to the African Man and that both the black woman and the white woman had equal measure of hair. Therefore, as way of degrading the dignity of the African Woman, they forces them to shave their hair.

My sources, which I can’t disclose now but I sure would do later, tell me that, the British Colonial Government made the cutting down of hair a basic requirement for West African Girls whose parents were rich enough to enroll them in the ‘Castle Schools’, as a way of distinguishing them from their European counterparts.

Now, having seen the origin of girls cutting down their hair in primary and high schools, I find myself wondering why the act has not been abolished since ‘independence’ some 60 years ago. Why are we gladly enforcing a rule that used to be a punishment and sign of disgrace and public ridicule for us? Why has this oral law become one the most conspicuous aspects of our so ‘Ghanaian Educational System’? Are we still under colonisation or are we colonising ourselves?

Funnily enough, we make the girls cut down the hair when they are young and then when they finish Senior High School, they go to buy hair extensions at exorbitant prices, made with synthetic materials or cut from the hair of a white girl in America or China or Brazil or only God knows where. God, I’m almost in tears.

When shall we change our mindsets? When shall we actually live the Osagyefo’s dream of true emancipation? When shall we liberate our minds from the shackles of neocolonialism? When shall we sit and look critically at what is beneficial to us and what we need as a people and relegate all that won’t benefit us to the background? When?

#BeInspired #RenewYourMind

@EfoKorkuMawutor

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