To abolish school uniforms or not? Experts weigh in on the controversial topic

Aspects of the abolishment have stirred up the School Uniform conversation for a while, with those proposing a possible scap, citing everything from unnecessarily high uniform prices, and the uniform-wearing culture being outdated. 

It was no different during an interview on Citizen TV's Daybreak on Tuesday, where KUPPET chairman Omboko Milemba, former Education CEC Janet Ouko, and education expert/lecturer Kennedy Echesa clashed over the matter. 

Ex-education CEC Janet Ouko, who sparked the argument, proposed that school uniforms should be done away with because they are forcing parents to dig too deep into their pockets, yet there are better options to purchase cheaper uniforms.

She claims that schools award contracts to well-known uniform dealers who charge exorbitant prices in order to make money.

"If uniforms stops from accessing school we absolutely don't need it but we are not there yet so we are saying can we define what we need as uniform, we keep it at bare minimum. What we have currently is the exaggeration uniforms needed and they are opportunities of making money." she said.

"Uniforms cost Ksh 36,000 I do not know whether ni ya kuenda kwa jeshi ama ni ya kuenda wapi. And I wonder why can't a parent just buy a shirt a skirt and the shoes that you were using in primary school," she suggested.

Similarly, Milemba, the chair of the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET), argued that school uniforms have been given undue importance when the main focus should be on education delivery.

"If uniforms are a hindrance to access to education let it be removed or let it be modelled in a way that it is cheap enough to make every student access them," said Milemba.

He added; "... because we were never going to school because we are uniformed learners, we were going to school to get education. Not to have the high quality uniform material that we are talking about. There is no correlation between uniforms and learning."

Expert Echesa, on the other hand, believes that eliminating uniforms will cause a schism in students' social wellness because social hierarchies will create many barriers.

"I want to disagree with my two seniors here," Echesa began his statement. 

"Just for demonstration, I put on a suit coming here so that I don't get a backlash from the way my colleagues are dressed here. And this is likely to happen in our schools. In fact it is going to be more expensive to parents when we don't have uniforms than when we have them," he added.

He added to the debate by saying;

"A son of an MP will come to school with a three-piece suit while the son of a farmer comes with some tatters. We cannot have schools where children choose costumes to come with in school, I agree with them that we must control the cost of school uniforms," he noted.

 "We are living in a very socially challenged society, people will come without dressing properly. It will be a case of indiscipline uniforms are good."