Indecent dressing on University campuses:

Dr. Kum Sylvester

 Who is to blame?
Indecent dressing which has become a major source for concern in Cameroonian Universities has been attributed to poor parenting, wrong usage of the internet, and peer pressure. The Students' Affairs Officer in charge of Discipline at the National Polytechnic Bamenda, Dr. Kum Sylvester revealed the finding in an interview with The Median’s Carine Kubong. Here are excerpts.
Is it necessary to check students dressing on university campuses?

    I think it very imperative to check students dressing in a university campus. We need a high level of decency on campus because the students we are nurturing today could be leaders of tomorrow and must be role models.
    The University, which is supposed to be a citadel of learning, charged with the responsibility of training in both academics, morals and character should not become a theatre of the absurd, where anything goes and scandalous behaviour has to become the order of the day. It is a horrible sight to bear and to see our young ladies parading the streets and campuses in assorted seductive dresses exposing the sensual parts of their bodies. These dresses that are madly worn by these students are called flirty dresses, backless tops resting on trousers, ridiculously short skirts that barely cover the essentials of womanhood, suffocating tight jeans that barely cover the hips and thighs etc. These dresses are so revealing when they are worn, so that the flowing symbol of purity, modesty has been thrown overboard.

    Education is concerned with the development of total personality of students and positive changes in their behavioral patterns. The attainment of the lofty aims and objectives of education cannot be realized unless we have in our university an environment that is conducive for effective teaching and learning. Discipline is absolutely essential ingredient of such an enabling operational climate. The attitudes and values of students constitute the critical factor in the level of discipline in the university. There is need for students to be aided in clarifying their values and modifying their attitudes so as to be able to make rational decisions in socially, relevant acceptable way. There is a saying that “you are addressed by the way you dressed. Researchers have shown that a student’s conduct and performance are related to his or her clothing; therefore the university should be concerned with the student’s clothing. A student’s clothing should not be a distraction or disruption to learning environment.

    Indecent dressing is rampant today on most campuses. What accounts for this?

    The emergence of indecent dressing onto the National Polytechnic campus has multi-faceted reasons. This is so because the student population is made up of a multiplicity of young men and women from different tribes and countries with different interests, religions, training and backgrounds. Therefore, the reasons why a student of National Polytechnic will dress indecently are varied and depend on the willingness of the student to comply with pressures from his peers or otherwise. In a nut shell, the society, parents and their parenting, wrong usage of the internet, pressure from friends and the sinking values of our culture are factors that influence indecent dressing in higher institutions of learning; some girls virtually go naked in the name of following fashion.

    But the government has banned indecent dressing in public places; has this produced the desired result?

    My observation is that, while the issue of indecent dressing continues to be of great concern to society at large, many look on helplessly as the Youth, particularly students in our tertiary educational institutions continue to flout all rules of decency in the name of modernity and fashion. of the students.
    Dresses are getting more abbreviated, tighter, more transparent and generally more revealing. Necklines are getting lower, blouses are getting smaller and waistlines of trousers are getting lower by the day. In short, clothes worn by our youth, particularly females are getting more daring with some bordering on the provocative.
    Clothes that would have raised eyebrows a few years ago are today seen as the norm. Unfortunately, many of our young ladies have discarded the known traditional ways of dressing for the more liberal, but often less decent Western style of dressing. There seems to be no shame at all about revealing body parts in ways that cause embarrassment to onlookers.
    It is sad to say that some parents actively condone the indecency by buying these less-than-decent clothes for their children in a bid to satisfy their desire to be trendy. These worrisome clothes have gained so much acceptability in our society that many traders find it profitable to import them for sale on the local market. To give a further boost to their patronage, there is a ready supply of cheaper versions of the more expensive ones worn by known celebrities of the Western world with whom the youth are proud to be identified.
    The young men are not left out as there seems to be a competition among them to see who succeeds in pushing the waistline of their trousers as far below their mid section as possible. The resulting awkward movement can be very irritating to the decency prone onlooker who sees the whole spectacle as an exercise in vulgarity. Sometimes, the above scenario is worsened by the wearing of earrings by these young men who are willing to do anything in the same of fashion.
    It is however, gratifying to note that young men are wearing their hair more decent now than they did a few years ago. The rather weird haircuts seem to have disappeared from our streets and tertiary institutions.