If I understand Adevărul newspaper correctly, it seems that Romania has adopted school uniforms. The parties that some have labelled as extremists, PSD and AUR, have voted in the very British thing.
And USR has voted against it.
Now, in my experience, moving around, school uniforms have been more common in monarchies. I know they also existed in Romania during communist times, all those 36 years ago.
For British people, the idea of school uniforms is not controversial. Rather, they ask questions like, “Does mufti day defeat the purpose of school uniforms?” One defence of the uniform, in British schools, is it takes away class barriers. Rich kids no longer create a click that excludes the poorer ones.
But in Romanian newspapers, the cost of school uniforms is seen as an extra “cost of free education.” Yes, you do have to pay for them, and it might be cheaper sometimes to buy other clothes, but after a while you can wear second hand or hand me down uniforms. Most people don’t care, in Britain, if you have second hand clothes (in fact, their “retro” quality can make them fashionable.) Second hand is not only for environmentalists and those who lack money, but antiques are sought after luxuries. (Perhaps that is one of the secrets of Britain’s traditional wealth, a pride in its past. It is disappearing among some, but it’s still there enough to keep the economy alive.)
In Britain, the uniform is not associated with a dictatorial past, like it might be in countries like France or Romania. It does not belong to one political party, to one class, to one ideology, but it belongs to everyone.
But there is hypocrisy in the British system. While students have to wear uniforms, teachers do not. While those who work at fast food or supermarkets have to wear uniforms, coders and accountants do not. However, when everyone is dressed the same, it breaks down barriers that sometimes exist in America, where the Jews tend to dress one way, the Italians another, the Koreans yet another.
That said, you can always make friends with people who dress differently from you. I remember a bus ride in America, seeing three young students of strikingly different ethnic breakdowns, dressed as stereotypes, the white kid had a goatee and an oversized skater shirt, I’m not even sure I want to describe the others here, but they seemed to be the best of friends, treating each other as individuals. Their conversation is beyond the scope of this news story, but it could be a book on its own. No, you don’t need uniforms to get along.
But in Britain, I’ve seen the positive effect of uniforms. Parents and grandparents cannot force their children to wear political messages or other degrading material. The community made sure that children had clean clothes, that fit and that suited them.
Of course, the first step is making sure children actually come to school. Uniforms or not, there is a larger problem in European education. France, Poland, Romania and elsewhere, the drop out rates from university are making the news. The stereotype of the dumb American no longer holds up in a continent where many adults never read a book.