School long-hair row raises education chief's eyebrows

The point of school rules were presented by Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin as she defended a ban on male students wearing long hair.

This came after secondary five student Lam Chak-chun, 16, said on Instagram he complained to the Equal Opportunities Commission that his school violated the Sex Discrimination Ordinance in banning boys with long hair.

Choi said: "Schools design their own rules according to their education or value system and ethos," Choi said, adding that the Education Bureau has "very clear guidelines for school rules too."

Staff at TWGHs Wong Fut Nam College in Kowloon City told The Standard yesterday that its principal, Lee Ching-pong, talked with EOC staff, but there was nothing to say on the issue for now.

Lam's post racked up more than 453,000 views, with 49,000 likes and 2,000 comments, by 7.45pm last night, with a vast majority praising and supporting him.

Among them was local rapper Tyson Yoshi, who wrote: "Let's go. Support."

In a seven-minute video on Instagram on Tuesday, Lam - who now has short hair with curtain-like bangs - said the commission found his complaint substantiated and the case was in mediation.

He said he was inspired by former League of Social Democrats legislator "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung's judicial review against a ban on flowing locks in prison.

Leung won in the Court of First Instance, saw the decision overturned in the Court of Appeal, but went to the highest Court of Final Appeal and triumphed again.

That prompted Lam to contemplate whether similar school rules were outdated, said the student, who had been letting his hair grow long since secondary four.

After taking lessons online at the peak of the fifth Covid wave, Lam returned to school for in-person classes in May but was told repeatedly to cut his long hair or face being banned from school activities.

"I was forced to cut [my hair] under a lot of pressure and I was in a bad mood for a time," he said. "But I realized it was not the way out. I needed to make changes."

Schools would justify a long hair ban on boys in the cause of tidiness, Lam added, yet girls with long hair could be deemed to be clean and tidy.

jane.cheung@singtaonewscorp.com