Education with Morals: Ebonyi Launches Campaign Against Indecent Dressing in Schools

By Emmanuel Obinna Igwe

In a firm but thoughtful address to top stakeholders, Local Education Secretaries,  senior secondary school principals across Ebonyi State, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Mrs Mary Ngozi Otozi, sounded an urgent call for collective action against the rising trend of indecent dressing among students. The setting was the Nigeria Union of Teachers’ Secretariat in Abakaliki, but the subject matter reached far beyond the walls of that meeting room.

Mrs Otozi’s tone was neither moralistic nor punitive. Rather, it was a plea for societal responsibility and value reorientation. She described the increasingly provocative dress styles among students—particularly girls—as a reflection of weakening parental control and societal silence, warning that the implications go beyond appearance.

“Decency is not about oppression,” she explained. “It is about protection, dignity, and identity. When students wear outfits that expose their bodies, they attract attention that is neither safe nor honourable.”

She did not mince words on the urgency. Linking the rise of sexual harassment and abuse with the growing culture of body exposure among teenagers, Otozi emphasised that dress codes in schools must reflect discipline and respect. “We are not policing fashion,” she clarified. “We are preserving values.”

The Permanent Secretary charged school principals to establish functioning Guidance and Counselling units in all public secondary schools across the state. These, she said, must serve not as mere administrative requirements but as active spaces for engaging students on personal development, emotional intelligence, and ethical grooming.

In a move that broadened the responsibility beyond school walls, she called on parents and guardians to reclaim their roles in setting standards at home. “Training a child is not a government function—it begins in the home,” Otozi said, citing the popular maxim: Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

She also addressed what she termed “discipline phobia” among some parents. “When a teacher disciplines a child, some parents respond with threats, abuse, or even lawsuits,” she said. “This is undermining the moral authority of our schools and damaging our educational environment.”

Speaking on behalf of the principals, Mr Oketa Christopher of Special Science School, Igbeagu, echoed the Permanent Secretary’s concerns. He confirmed that the pushback from parents often complicates the enforcement of rules in schools. “We are increasingly afraid to correct students,” he confessed. “A single disciplinary action could get a teacher arrested or publicly shamed.”

Mr Oketa called for a policy framework that protects educators while holding parents accountable for obstructive behaviour. He stressed that education cannot thrive where discipline is misunderstood as oppression and where teachers are treated as adversaries.

The meeting ended with a strong consensus: grooming students for success must go beyond academics. It must include character, presentation, and value systems. And it must be driven by synergy between schools, parents, and the state.

In Ebonyi, the conversation around school dress codes is not about fabric—it is about the fabric of society.