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In the news today - Tertiary institution believes it has the right to dictate what students wear. ST "journalist" agrees in poorly-written article.


1st Article:

ONE of Singapore's biggest private schools is cracking down on student dress, banning mini-skirts, flip-flops, dyed hair and visible tattoos, among a host of other things.

The decision by the Management Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS) has upset many of its 12,500 students, who called the rules draconian.

No singlets, shorts, mini-skirts, clothes with obscene slogans, slippers, or sandals without heel straps.

'I think (they) are unnecessary. We are studying at a private institution, not at a secondary school or polytechnic,' said final-year mass communications student Raaj Kumar, 18.

'We should have the freedom to choose what we want to wear to school.'

The wide-ranging crackdown, which began last month, leaves the school with tougher enforcement on dress standards than most universities and polytechnics. The dress code includes a prohibition on shorts, singlets, low-cut tops, slippers and facial piercings.

'The objective of coming to MDIS is to study, not to display distasteful dressing,' the school's senior manager for student administration, Ms Jamuna Rani, said yesterday. 'Students who are here genuinely to study may be put off or influenced by that.'

The school, which offers over 65 programmes, including English and mass communication diplomas, has campuses in Queenstown and Dhoby Ghaut. It has had watchers stationed at school entrances every morning since last month and has sent others on roving patrols in search of offenders, who are given verbal warnings.

Those who flout the rules repeatedly face suspension and being expelled.

The strict enforcement has irked students. Final-year mass communications student Matthew Ingrouille, 18, has been pulled up twice for wearing slippers to school. But he has no plans to wear proper shoes.

'I've always dressed like this and I don't see why I need to change,' he said.

Final-year business management degree student Vivian Zeng was warned twice for wearing mid-thigh length denim shorts and having dyed blond hair. The 24-year-old, who is from China, has decided to shelve the shorts.

'I understand that this is a school and we should respect our teachers so I've decided to follow the new rules. But I find the rules too restrictive. Universities in China do not have such rules.'

MDIS said its dress code has been in place since 2002 even though school officials started strictly enforcing it only last month when faced with a surge of miniskirts, bottle-blonds and slipper-clad youths.

Secretary-general R. Theyvendran dismissed claims that the rules were too strict. 'A certain amount of basic decency should be maintained. Otherwise, those who are serious about studying will be put off by these people,' he said.

Image consultant Elaine Heng, who advises clients on how to dress for interviews and work, said the MDIS imposes too many dress restrictions.

But the idea of instilling in students the importance of proper dressing is a good one, she said.

'One of my clients wanted to go for a job interview in sneakers. The rules will remind the students of the importance of looking presentable,' she said.

A check with the three local universities, polytechnics and private schools found most have dress codes stated on their websites, but many of these are not as rigidly enforced.

While MDIS said it is prepared to give a full refund to students who want to leave the school, it has not come to that yet. In fact, the number of offenders has dropped from 45 a day last month to 15 this month.


2nd article:

Why such a sloppy show?
November 05, 2008 Wednesday, 11:16 PM
Amelia Tan explains why university students will benefit from dressing well.

WHEN I was studying at the Nanyang Technological University, I used to frown upon students togged in skimpy tops, midriff-bearing shorts and slippers.

I would think to myself: “My mother would never let me go out of the house dressed like that”.

The issue of school dress raised its head recently when the The Management Development Institute of Singapore started cracking down on students, banning mini-skirts, tube tops, facial piercings and flip-flops among a host of other things.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a member of the fashion police.

I don’t think my university attire, which comprised mainly of jeans and t-shirts, qualifies me to judge.

But I think sloppiness is unacceptable.

I asked my friends who stayed in residence why they turned up for classes in what looked like sleepwear. Think threadbare t-shirts, running shorts and plastic slippers.

They told me they saw no need to dress up as they had no one to impress in school.

I disagreed. As the saying goes, clothes make the man. It says a great deal about how you view yourself if you turn up everyday looking bedraggled. It shows a lack of interest in learning as well as a lack of respect for your surroundings and classmates.

However, it was not all bad. My classmates and I started to dress better after we returned from a six-month internships during our third year in university. From our interaction with our colleagues as well as meeting other adults in the work force, we learnt the importance of looking presentable.

Many of my lecturers said they look forward to seeing the annual transformation of their students from sloppily-dressed youths to polished adults.

The Management Development Institute of Singapore does seem to be coming down hard on its students. I hope school officials will lighten up a little in the time to come.

But I feel in the long-run, students will benefit from the new dress code. Learning to take care of their image will put them in good stead when they enter the workforce.


A quick glance at the Straits Times today yielded these two gems, which complement each other in fallacious arguments and sheer absurdity. Long story short, MDIS decides that it has the right to dictate a dress code to young adults pursuing tertiary qualifications. A "journalist" (if she writes like this all the time, I wonder how she ever qualified as one) agrees and tells us just why in her own deeply flawed article. Let's have a go at them both.

Lying at the heart of MDIS' move and our intrepid reporter's article is one central, fallacious, assumption - that whatever one chooses to wear is an accurate judge of one's abilities, character and personality. In other words, we can and should judge a book by its cover. Is the sheer absurdity of this point of view clear yet? Even if it is, these articles are too good for me not to go on. Let us take a look at the school's justifications for this draconian and quite frankly ridiculous move:

'The objective of coming to MDIS is to study, not to display distasteful dressing,' the school's senior manager for student administration, Ms Jamuna Rani, said yesterday. 'Students who are here genuinely to study may be put off or influenced by that.'

One - why exactly are the things you banned considered "distasteful dressing"? Is anybody with tattoos and piercings automatically a secret society troublemaker? Is someone who wears slippers to school automatically a lazy and shiftless bad influence? It's the fucking 21st century already, why do people cling to astonishingly broad and hopelessly outdated generalisations such as these?

Two - on a similar vein, it is also implied that people who dress "distastefully" are not "genuinely [in MDIS] to study". What makes you believe so? MDIS is a private school that costs a significant amount of money. Enrolment is not compulsory for any group of people in society, so if the students aren't all in there to study, may I please ask what the fuck they are in there for? Are they there as fake students because they have too much bloody money and feel the need to give some of that cash away?

Three - so what if people are "put off"? I get "put off" by lots of shit but I tolerate it. In fact, I am put off by Ms Rani's shallow generalisations. That does not mean I demand that she be sacked, because I understand that I cannot generalise what she is saying here to other areas of her work, and that she might well be a very capable administrator. In a similar way, we cannot generalise that students are poor students simply because they don't dress well on a normal schoolday.

Secretary-general R. Theyvendran dismissed claims that the rules were too strict. 'A certain amount of basic decency should be maintained. Otherwise, those who are serious about studying will be put off by these people,' he said.

Adding to Ms Rani's point is the MDIS Secretary-General himself. Surprise, surprise, he brings decency into it. Now may I ask, why exactly are all the mentioned items indecent? I believe that whatever MDIS students wear to school, it is more than sufficient to cover the intimate areas of their body. That being the case, where is the indecency? Come on, the world won't end with a bit of cleavage or a few tattoos on show. And after that, there's the point about poorly dressed people not being serious about studying again. What gives?

This whole business is completely ridiculous, especially given the amount of resources the school is apparently devoting to hunting down these harlots:

It has had watchers stationed at school entrances every morning since last month and has sent others on roving patrols in search of offenders

Don't staff have better things to do, such as, I don't know, running the bloody school? I'm quite certain that the man-hours spent desperately trying to enforce a practically unenforceable rule can be put to better use. Your students pay good money to study in your school. You owe them that much. Stop being ridiculous and spend whatever resources you have on the important stuff instead.

Next, let us turn to our ST "journalist".

I would think to myself: “My mother would never let me go out of the house dressed like that”.

Does your mother still pick out what you wear to work every morning? If at the age of 19-early 20s your mother still dresses you every morning, you have bigger problems than a sloppy dress sense.

I don’t think my university attire, which comprised mainly of jeans and t-shirts, qualifies me to judge.

But I think sloppiness is unacceptable.

A time-honoured ST/general Singaporean tactic: "I don't mean to..., but.../I'm not qualified to judge, but.../(similar variants on the form)" followed by action which was just expressed as being unqualified to perform. "I don't think I'm qualified to judge, but..." and she then proceeds to pass a judgement on the very next line. And for the rest of the article. Don't they teach you not to do this shit in journalism school?

I disagreed. As the saying goes, clothes make the man. It says a great deal about how you view yourself if you turn up everyday looking bedraggled. It shows a lack of interest in learning as well as a lack of respect for your surroundings and classmates.

Why and how? At least try to justify your bald assertions. But journalism school apparently doesn't teach that either. How do your clothes show "a lack of interest in learning" and a "lack of respect for surroundings and classmates"? Interest in learning is demonstrated in lectures and tutorials, and respect for others is demonstrated in speech, body language and other forms of day-to-day interaction. You're trying to tell me that someone who wears a suit and tie everyday is incapable of being disrespectful to his peers and is definitely always 100% interested in his studies? That's complete crap. The private right to dress as one sees fit is a right that must also be respected - I'll come to school uniforms later.

It's true - there are always going to be idiots who turn up at job interviews dressed in t-shirts and shorts. But we have the death penalty for murder, yet people still commit murder. It does not follow that stricter penalties are going to eradicate behaviour like that. We have to live with it, and if people are too stupid to see the difference between daily life and an important interview, then they deserve whatever they've got coming. This idiocy is not a justification for more idiocy.

To address the point about school uniforms - I support school uniforms. Why? Because they are the great leveller. Everyone wears one thing regardless of wealth, status, etc. So if MDIS really wants to achieve its aims, it should institute a school uniform. Don't go pussyfooting around and try to find a compromise with wholly unrealistic regulations. Put in a school uniform, enforce it like junior colleges do and it'll be a far less idiotic policy, not to mention being much easier to regulate. If you think making tertiary students wear uniforms will make you look ridiculous, well, you already look plenty ridiculous now.

As for our "journalist", she needs to learn how to be one.