Much ado about facial hair


MY nephew is in Form 4 in a government school in the Shah Alam district. Like all Malaysian Indian adolescents, he has facial hair that grows more rapidly than his Malaysian Chinese and Malay peers.

The Education Ministry has issued a ruling that all male students must be “clean shaven”. This ruling is creating a lot of misunderstanding between Malaysian Indian students and the school authorities. Many otherwise well-behaved students are facing disciplinary “harassment” over this very superficial issue. In some extreme cases, Malaysian Indian parents see such disciplinary “harassment” as a form of discriminatory behaviour.

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