After years of dispute with the authorities, students in Thailand can now take off their hair. Literally.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Administrative Court in Thailand overturned a 50-year-old Directive of the Ministry of Education, which previously defined rules for hairstyles for students: short hair for boys and beans with a girls ear length.
In practice, the rules for hairstyles are gradually granted in many schools. But some have still used the 1975 Junta Directive as a guidance and would cut the hair of students who do not stick.
The 1975 Directive violates individual freedoms protected by the Constitution and is not in contact with today's society, the court announced.
The court's decision this week came in response to a petition filed by 23 students in public schools in 2020, which claims that the 1975 Directive was unconstitutional.
Student activists have long been campaigning for hairstyles to be calm, saying that it violates their human dignity and personal freedom over their bodies.
One of them is Pantin Adultanusak, who recently graduated from university.
“In the eyes of children like us then … Although it seemed impossible, we wanted to do something,” he told the BBC. “If no student in the history of the Thai people rises to dispute the power of the adults who suppressed us, it will be an inconvenience throughout life.”
In response to such campaigns, the Ministry of Education in 2020 allowed students to have longer hairstyles – but some restrictions remained. The boys' hair could not cover up the neck of their doors while the girls with long hair had to tie it.
These provisions were canceled in 2023, and then the Minister of Education Trinuch Thienthng announced that students, parents and school authorities should negotiate their own common ground for what is acceptable to hairstyles in their schools.
But through all these changes, some schools continued to follow the standard set out in the original directive of 1975.
Schools have traditionally been associated with short hair with discipline and arrangement – an argument that is repeated by many social media users this week. But in recent years, schools for banning bangs or dyed hair have sparked a public protest in Thailand.
In some parts of the country, it is known that teachers are trimmed with students' hair during the morning assembly to punish them to sail the hairstyle rules. Such practices continue even as the educational authorities warn teachers against this.
In January, the Ministry of Education reiterated that it had canceled hair limit restrictions for all students, saying it acknowledged “the importance of promoting diversity and justice in all aspects of education.”
The court's decision on Wednesday, which also says that the rules for the hairstyle of schools should take into account the freedom and dignity of the students, confirms the official impetus to leave the choice of hair to the students themselves.
But Pantin said that the cancellation of decades of directive “still leaves a hole for the schools to set their own rules.” In cases where schools have more conservative management, he suggests that restrictions may remain in force.
Nevertheless, Pantin said that “he feels happy, that what I have seen and fought all the time is recognized and has a tangible progress.”
“I hope the decision of this court will set a new standard of understanding of the fundamental rights of a person in the school.”