The Dress of the Oppressed

As a student myself I express my grave distaste for uniforms fuelled by logic rather than pure sentiment. According to the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, textile production produces 1.2 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas every year, the United Nations also estimates that 10 percent of total global emissions come from the fashion industry. Now think about this, the education industry is ever-growing and of course, each school has different uniforms with variance in size and colour, Consequentially increasing the need for textiles and further contributing to pollution .Let’s take a case study of USA, A 2012 peer-reviewed study by researchers at the University of Nevada at Reno found that 90% of seventh and eighth-grade public school students did not like wearing uniforms and if you ask about the higher grades well, they gave up(lol). This case study ascertains the presence of an uncomfortable atmosphere which acts as a hindrance for effective learning to take place for the students. Moreover Instead of wasting more money on uniforms that are not only unwearable anywhere else than school(if you do then your dweeb)the smarter and economical choice would be to wear normal clothing. With more than half of the countries in the world, having adopted a democratic system are enduring to facilitate the existence of diversity and individuality in their societies and it is the absolute duty of schools to instil the countries future citizens with the ability to co-exist with the growing aspect of diversity and individualism in the society and also nurture their own. A major argument for uniforms is that it promotes equality among its students, as in a more “well to do” students would potentially be able to flaunt their wealth, But it needs to be considered that reality is not soft to anyone and has to be seen as it is. By shielding the students from the harshness of reality, these schools are performing the greatest disservice to the students and foregoing the very purpose of their institutionalization. In reality, the rich remain rich and bashfully flaunt their wealth with no consideration for ethics and not conditioned by-laws as pitiful as the rules of some schools. What is the solution? My solution would be to specify the dress-code as official or casual, this would grant the students the freedom to express themselves but also confined by certain regulations. Thank you