In a step that has attracted justified praise, a 104-year-old government school in Ernakulam district in Kerala has introduced a new uniform for all its students. The policy of implementing a 3/4th shorts and shirt was first introduced in 2018 by then headmistress C Raji of the Valayanchirangara Government Lower Primary School, the decision coming in after the approval of the school management committee and parent teachers committee. “One of my neighbours wanted to admit his daughter in the school, but didn’t want the girl to have a skirt as her uniform. He asked if she could wear anything else, or trousers like the boys,” C Raji tells us, sharing how she presented the parent’s question in a PTA meeting. “We all took the decision to change the uniform to a unisex one which boys and girls could wear in the same way. We introduced it first in pre-primary classes for which we received a positive response from the kids and their parents and then we decided to implement it in the other classes as well.” For Aparna S, mother of Avani Anil, a Class IV student of the school, the new uniform has eased much discomfort. “Kids are very active at this age and skirts made them back out of academic and extra-curricular activities because they made them so conscious about their bodies. I used to drop my daughter at school in a two-wheeler and the skirt made her commute fairly uncomfortable. She is happy with the new uniform.”

Kochi-based designer Vidya Mukundan, who is behind the new uniform credits Dr Binoy Peter, former academic chairman and PTA president of the school, with bringing the idea to her. She tells us how there were not a lot of other uniforms of the kind in Kerala at that time. Moreover, in most schools, the PTA and school management decide the pattern of the school uniform, but this being a government school, the latter provided the material while she chose the pattern, deciding to extend the shorts to a 3/4th length, comfort and free movement for girls being the primary intention behind the change.