SSUNI: All Students Should Be Allowed to Wear Trousers

In this post, Brooke, Mental Health Officer of the Secondary Students’ Union of Northern Ireland (SSUNI) argues that all girls should be allowed to wear trousers in school. She highlights the work of SSUNI, campaigning for equality in schools and for better school uniform policies. James Kane responds (here)

Students deserve to feel comfortable and confident in the education setting, and I believe a main part of this is allowing all students to wear trousers. Everyone, boys and girls, should be able to feel safe and secure enough in school, even if it comes from something as minuscule as wearing trousers. While boys are currently allowed to wear trousers, there are girls across Northern Ireland wanting to wear them too, for comfort, style, or even just the cold weather!

Currently, girls wearing trousers is a choice left up to the schools, so while one school may let girls wear trousers, one may not. I think this should be a decision made by the Executive, as it ensures this is implemented across Northern Ireland, and not just in selected schools. Sadly, however, the legislation on this issue keeps getting blocked and so girls continue to struggle.

This is a cross-community issue, girls from all 6 counties in Northern Ireland will struggle with not wearing trousers in school, so both sides of the community should take a stand on this!

It goes beyond school uniform also. I believe it’s an issue of control. Grown men and women want to control what young girls can and cannot wear in the school environment and want to legislate our clothes into something to be debated about. We should give control and power back to the youth, especially when its issues, like this, which concern them, and not adults.

SSUNI has campaigned for better uniform policy for a while! In the #UniformReform campaign, we looked at growing uniform costs. We surveyed over 1,000 students who agreed something had to be done by the Executive, to keep students out of financial difficulty. We wrote to the Minister for Education to tell him that. In our next student executive, we did the same thing with the #EasingEducation campaign. We showed how a cost-of-living crisis impacts students.

We have talked about this issue also in our Feminist Society. Now the Committee for Education are taking an interest in girls wearing trousers, we encouraged all students to have their say.

Everyone deserves to feel comfortable and confident at school. So, students need to take a stand! Uniforms are worn by students, we need to make sure they are being led by students!

You can find there #UniformReform Campaign here:

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