The Sikh community wants the Education Ministry to issue an explicit directive allowing Sikh students to grow facial hair.
March 3, 2015 - SEREMBAN: The lack of a written directive from the Education Ministry has meant that many school heads are still ignorant that Sikh students are forbidden from shaving hair from any part of their body, including their beard and moustache.
This has made it especially hard for students to convince school heads to allow them to leave their facial hair untouched, even with help from outside organisations.
“Whenever we receive such a complaint, we have to send our members to explain the matter to the school heads,” said National Sikh Youth Organisation president Pavandeep Singh in a report by the Star Online.
Malaysian Gurdwaras Council president Jagir Singh said that the MGC had already raised the matter with the ministry in 2011.
“We cannot be acting on this on an ad hoc basis. We cannot be going to schools and explaining this to the heads all the time,” said Jagir.
“We wrote to the Prime Minister’s Office in February of that year and appealed for our boys to be allowed to wear a turban, the steel bangle or kara and to keep their facial hair as required by our religion.
“A circular was issued by the ministry the following month to all schools but it had overlooked the part about the facial hair,” he said here yesterday.
According to him, Sikh boys selected for National Service never faced such problems because circulars stating this had already been issued to all camps.
According to him, the council has consistently received complaints on this matter.
Three Sikh students in Muar, Wangsa Maju and here were recently told by their school heads to shave their facial hair or have disciplinary action taken against them, including expulsion.
Education director-general Khair Mohamad Yusof has already responded to the issue.
“We will look into this and issue a directive soon. In the meantime, schools can always check with us and we would allow it,” he said.