School Uniforms Face Legal Challenge

Initially it is only younger pupils in the first four grades who are being required to wear uniform, but the Child Rights Protection League has launched a legal challenge to the move, which will be reviewed in court on September 11.



Reporter Aiday Tokonova spoke to parents in the capital Bishkek who said they do not have the money to buy the required clothing even in the cheapest shops.



Nazgul Turdubekova, who heads the Child Rights Protection League, expects to see rising numbers of children missing out on school because they do not have uniforms. She notes that the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF estimates that 40,000 children are failing to go to school.



On the streets of Bishkek, however, many people said they favoured making uniforms compulsory, as they were in Soviet times, as this instils a sense of discipline, cohesion and equality.