The politics of haircut in SHS: The price for uniformity in schools or an outdated tradition?
1. The controversy surrounding hairstyles in Ghana’s senior high schools (SHSs) continues to ignite fierce debate across campuses, homes, and media platforms. For some, the insistence that girls must crop their hair is a colonial residue that offends modern sensibilities and personal liberty. For others, it is a legitimate mechanism for enforcing uniformity and discipline in a context that desperately needs order. Beneath the surface, this debate is not about hair at all, it is about values, institutional integrity, and the meaning of education in a changing society.
2. It is true that the haircut regulation was inherited from colonial missionary education. The early British and European missionaries associated modesty and cleanliness with short hair, compelling African girls to conform to Western grooming standards. Historically, that rule was more ideological than hygienic. It symbolised the missionaries’ conviction that civilisation required cultural uniformity. This historical origin is undeniable, yet origins alone cannot determine current relevance.
3. If colonial roots were sufficient grounds for abolition, then Ghana would need to dismantle nearly every structure that sustains its public life. Our entire education system, the English language, Christianity, the court system, the parliamentary systems, etc are all colonial heritages. Shall we abolish them as well? The truth is that nations grow not by rejecting history but by reforming and contextualising it. What matters is not where a law began, but whether it continues to serve a useful purpose within present realities.
4. Over the decades, the haircut policy has evolved from a colonial imposition into a Ghanaian educational convention that promotes order, simplicity, and uniformity. Teachers no longer invoke it to mimic the British missionary classroom; they defend it as a pragmatic rule for managing large numbers of adolescents within boarding institutions. The logic of the rule has therefore been decolonised, its purpose now Ghanaian, its function administrative and moral rather than imperial.
5. Those who advocate the abolition of the haircut requirement often cite freedom of expression and cultural identity. They argue that forbidding girls to keep their natural or braided hair is a violation of personal rights and a betrayal of African heritage. While this rhetoric appeals to emotion, it collapses under the weight of educational pragmatism. A school is not a democracy of preferences; it is a disciplined environment for intellectual and moral formation. Freedom must operate within boundaries if learning is to flourish.
6. Indeed, adolescence is the season of self-expression. A teenage girl who desires to braid her hair is not necessarily vain, she is discovering her identity. But the purpose of the school environment is not to indulge every personal impulse; it is to direct impulses toward productive ends. Uniformity is not oppression; it is pedagogy. By eliminating outward competition over appearance, the school creates inward focus on character, diligence, and scholarship.
7. To grasp why Ghana’s haircut rule remains defensible, one must appreciate the contextual difference between Ghanaian and Western educational settings. In most Europe and America, over 90 percent of high-school students are day students who live at home. Their grooming, nutrition, and discipline are primarily supervised by parents. The school merely provides academic instruction. In Ghana, however, approximately 80 percent of SHS students are boarders. Teachers and housemasters act in loco parentis, responsible for every aspect of students’ welfare. In such a context, a degree of institutional uniformity is not optional; it is indispensable. A boarding school cannot efficiently manage thousands of teenagers, from varied socio-economic backgrounds, if every student insists on personal sartorial and grooming autonomy. The Western model cannot be transplanted wholesale into the Ghanaian soil without collapsing the very structure of order that holds our schools together.
8. Those who urge us to imitate the hairstyle freedoms of Western schools therefore ignore this structural reality. Our context demands rules that theirs does not. Discipline in a residential educational system cannot be maintained by persuasion alone; it requires enforceable standards. A cropped haircut, while seemingly minor, symbolises the collective commitment to order in a communal environment.
9. Furthermore, the haircut largely reduces the tendency of classism in schools. Ghanaian schools bring together students from diverse economic backgrounds, that is, children of farmers and bankers, traders and professors. In such diversity, visible class markers easily breed peer pressure, superiority and inferiority complexes. Hairstyles, expensive hair extensions, and designer accessories can quickly stratify the student body. The cropped hair subtly erases those differences, allowing rich and poor to coexist without ostentation. It is a quiet social leveller that nurtures solidarity.
10. Beyond classism, the haircut embodies discipline, the very foundation of moral education. The willingness to obey a rule that offers no immediate gratification is the essence of character training. The student who learns to submit to a simple grooming regulation learns the deeper virtue of restraint which is an indispensable civic quality. Obedience to school rules is a rehearsal for obedience to national laws.
11. Critics often retort that hair length has no correlation with academic achievement. They are right, but the argument misses the point. The haircut is not about academic performance; it is about habit formation. Every society that values order insists on visible symbols of discipline. The military shaves beards, judges wear robes, and nurses don uniforms. These external marks cultivate internal discipline. Education, similarly, uses visible uniformity to nurture invisible virtues.
12. We must also consider the practical realities confronting teachers and administrators. In a typical Ghanaian SHS, one teacher may manage an average of sixty students. Rules that minimise distractions are therefore indispensable. Allowing hundreds of hairstyles could consume teachers’ time and attention with endless debates over neatness, length, and style. The cropped haircut eliminates ambiguity: it is simple, clear, and enforceable.
13. Those who oppose the rule often appeal to modernisation. They argue that we are in the twenty-first century and must move with the times. But modernity does not always mean relaxation of standards; sometimes it means perfecting them. Progress is not measured by how many rules we abolish but by how wisely we preserve those that still work. If a rule promotes equity, focus, and discipline, it is not antiquated, it is timeless.
14. It is, of course, possible to reform the rule without discarding it entirely. Schools may explore measured flexibility: perhaps allowing well-kept natural hair under strict supervision, provided it remains uniform and modest. But such adjustments must be made through thoughtful consultation, not populist agitation. Policy cannot be dictated by the loudest social-media voice. It must arise from reasoned educational analysis.
15. The “colonial relic” argument, while rhetorically fashionable, collapses under scrutiny. Colonialism indeed imposed alien systems, but it also introduced administrative structures that we have since adapted to our benefit. The English language was a colonial tool, yet it is now Ghana’s bridge to global scholarship. Christianity came through colonial channels, yet millions embrace it voluntarily as spiritual truth. The court and parliamentary systems were colonial, yet they remain indispensable to governance. If we must abolish everything colonial, consistency would require us to dismantle the very fabric of modern Ghana. The selective moral outrage against the haircut rule therefore rings hollow.
16. What Ghana must resist is not colonial heritage per se but colonial mentality, that is, the uncritical adoption of foreign standards without contextual adaptation. Ironically, those who advocate Western hairstyle freedoms are themselves perpetuating colonial mimicry by seeking to reproduce Euro-American norms in an African school system. True decolonisation lies not in blind imitation of Western liberalism but in confident assertion of what works for us.
17. Another reason to retain the haircut rule is the slippery-slope principle. If we yield on this rule today, what moral ground will we stand on tomorrow? Once students realise that institutional rules can be bent through public pressure, they will challenge every other regulation. The next battle will be over footwear, skirt length, dining hours, reporting time, or even attendance, as the Minister for Education, Hon. Haruna Iddrisu aptly observed. When order loses its grip, chaos becomes institutionalised. Discipline erodes not through sudden collapse but through gradual concessions disguised as reforms.
18. Every rule, however minor, sustains the rhythm of institutional life. Remove one cog and the machinery falters. The haircut policy may appear trivial, but it functions as a psychological reminder that belonging to a community requires sacrifice. A school without rules is not a school, it is an accommodation facility.
19. Global comparison further vindicates the Ghanaian position. Strict grooming codes exist even in the world’s most elite institutions. Military academies, top-tier boarding schools in Britain, and private colleges in Asia all impose specific hair and dress regulations. Their graduates, far from being oppressed, emerge disciplined, self-controlled, and highly employable. Ghana’s insistence on uniform grooming therefore aligns not with backwardness but with international standards of discipline.
20. Nevertheless, rules must not be enforced mechanically. Educators must explain the rationale behind them so that obedience becomes enlightened, not resentful. The law is the law, but laws achieve legitimacy only when citizens understand their moral logic. The haircut rule must therefore be communicated as a symbol of uniformity and discipline, not merely as an administrative command.
21. We should also reflect on the broader cultural pathology of our time and the obsession with appearance. Modern youth culture equates confidence with cosmetics, identity with aesthetics. Education must rescue the young from this illusion. By simplifying appearance, the cropped haircut redirects attention from the mirror to the mind. It teaches that worth is internal, not ornamental.
22. It is understandable that some parents and activists perceive the haircut rule as excessive. Their intentions may be noble; they want children to feel free and valued. Yet true freedom is not the absence of rules but the mastery of self within rules. A disciplined student, though externally constrained, is internally liberated. An undisciplined one, though externally free, is enslaved by impulse.
23. The Ghanaian school tradition has long produced individuals who later excelled in politics, academia, and professional life. Their shared attribute is resilience born of structure. Waking up at dawn, attending parade, observing mealtimes, and yes, keeping the prescribed haircut, all these instilled punctuality, obedience, and respect for hierarchy. To dismantle such traditions in the name of modern freedom would be to amputate the very roots of our national character.
24. Reform, when necessary, should be evolutionary, not revolutionary. We can modernise the justification of old rules without destroying their stabilising effects. Perhaps schools could integrate periodic dialogues where students voice concerns and teachera explain rationales. But the principle of uniformity must remain intact. Institutions that abandon discipline in pursuit of popularity soon lose both.
25. The cropped hair has, over time, become more than a rule, it is a metaphor. It represents the stripping away of vanity for the cultivation of virtue. It reminds students that education is not about indulgence but about preparation for service. It signals uniformity in a society still struggling with class consciousness. And it stands as a resistance to the consumerist culture that measures value by appearance.
26. Therefore, while it is intellectually fashionable to call for abolition of the haircut policy under the banner of decolonisation, such a move would be both historically naïve and practically disastrous. Colonialism’s evil lay not in every rule it introduced but in the power with which it imposed them. We have since reclaimed our sovereignty; we can now choose to retain what serves us. The haircut rule, properly contextualised, serves us well.
27. The question is not whether the policy is colonial but whether it is constructive. By every reasonable measure, i.e., discipline, uniformity and practicality, it is. To abolish it would please activists but perplex educators. Until a superior alternative emerges that guarantees the same moral and administrative outcomes, the law must remain the law.
28. Ghana’s educational future depends on a delicate equilibrium between freedom and formation. We must produce citizens who think independently yet respect order, who question wisely yet obey justly. The cropped haircut may seem a small thing, but in its simplicity it symbolises that equilibrium. It teaches that genuine modernity is not rebellion against rules but refinement of them.
29. For me, the politics of hairstyles in SHS is a microcosm of our national struggle between heritage and modernity. While the rule’s origins may lie in colonial history, its current justification rests firmly on Ghanaian necessity. To scrap it in the name of freedom would be to sacrifice discipline on the altar of fashion. Let us instead re-educate our youth to see beyond aesthetics to ethics, to realise that the highest form of beauty is character shaped by order.
The writer, Daniel Fenyi is the Head of Public Relations Unit at the GES and an education researcher.
