Freedom, culture, respect, decency enter dress code debate

The balance between individual freedoms, local cultures and societal norms, universities’ guidelines, as well as the importance of preparing students to be professional once they enter the workplace are aspects that feed into conversations about how students should dress at institutions in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

Moroccan professor Yamina El Kirat El Allame, the director of the Moroccan Institute for Advanced Studies at Mohammed V University in Morocco, said the university did not have a prescribed dress code.

“I am not in favour of a uniform at the university level. This can be adopted at school level, [but] I am in favour of setting a dress code [for students],” El Allame said.

She told University World News universities should also promote values and a code of behaviour in addition to educational and intellectual responsibilities.

“Setting a code and guidelines for [students’] external appearance is [therefore] important for several reasons, including preparing them to meet workplace expectations … [Guidelines] create an inclusive, distraction-free environment …” El Allame said, adding that it could also promote self-respect, respect for others, and respect for the local culture.

“The university has the role to make the students value and feel proud of their local culture and make them aware of the fact that their dress codes should respect their culture because it conveys who they are and that adopting the global culture or other cultures blindly will lead to their acculturation and assimilation and the loss of their identity,” El Allame warned.

“Setting dress code restrictions for students is very important and does in no way violate their freedom or human rights,” she stated. Rather, codes reinforced the importance of dressing appropriately, which could have positive social implications and lead to the implementation of this practice in the whole of society, she added.

“I have also always been in favour of the idea that teachers, too, should dress in a respectful way to be role models for their students,” El Allame noted.

“People will see you as respectful, well-behaved, disciplined, serious, and so on, from the way you dress. We do judge books from their covers, whether we like it or not,” El Allame said.

She added: “Our young people should also be made aware of the fact that fashion is not always positive! It sometimes promotes an ideology, a state of mind, and a way of life that is completely in contradiction with our moral values, cultural principles and customs.

“Adopting the dress code of a singer, a social media influencer, a celebrity makes you a person with no identity, no personality. You are … a ‘clone’ of that individual who is very often spreading an ideology and promoting some ideas and ways of thinking that seek to destroy the people we are, our principles, values and traditions,” she warned.

Culture and morality

Algerian professor Abdelkader Djeflat, the former dean of the faculty of economics at the University of Oran, told University World News that dress conventions were linked to the culture, morality and image of an institution.

“We have seen [inappropriate student dress] in many North African universities … being copied from other, foreign universities and other cultures.

“It may concern only a minority but, left unchecked, [this] could easily expand to other students’ groups,” said Djeflat, who is also the founding president of the International Network on Science and Technology for Maghreb Development.

“Applying certain dress code rules is, in my view, necessary, while leaving a large span of choice to the students. That is why I am not in favour of a uniform at higher education level, even if I agree with uniforms at lower levels (primary and secondary), which may face fierce opposition on the part of the students in the name of protecting their freedom of expression and their personality.

“The dress system practised in North African universities is rather free and this is the case of the university I worked in. The dress is sometimes a mirror of the diversity of views, opinions, orientations within an accepted level of decency,” he said.

According to him, another dimension one has to take into account relates to how the manner in which a student dresses is mediated by the family, who may influence students’ dress orientations.

“I think that career development centres at African universities must provide students with basic skills on ways to take care of their appearance at job interviews and work places as part of professional development programmes.

“Students are required to not only have the qualifications, skills and diplomas to execute the tasks they are hired for, but also to do a great deal of representation of the organisation they are in. Their appearances are often part of their success,” Djeflat advised.

Universities as places of ‘free thought’

Tunisian professor Sami Hammami, the former vice-president of the University of Sfax, told University World News there are currently no restrictions or rules on the uniforms or dresses that students should wear in Tunisia.

“This idea in certain countries [that clothing] reflects belonging to a culture or to a specific disciplinary orientation is difficult to integrate into our universities,” Hammami said.

“We can consider a unified uniform for students who take courses in private schools, but this will always remain a marginal practice.

“The university space is a space of freedom and the wearing of the veil or fashionable clothing is tolerated within the limits of respect for others,” he added.

“If we consider the university as a space for reflection and free thought, we cannot authoritatively demand uniformity of appearances,” Hammami noted.