School uniforms were first recorded in England in 1222. But how popular are they still?
The BBC reported last month that – according to a survey carried out by children’s charity Plan International UK – around a third of UK schoolgirls have been sexually harassed while wearing their uniforms. The survey referred to at least one case of a girl being followed by someone in a car.
Many uniforms have the name of the school on it, making stalking more easy, so we decided to carry out an online survey to see what parents thought about the issue. Using parents’ group chat sites we managed to get all our questions answered by 28 parents.
When asked if they supported school uniforms, 67% of the parents said yes, mostly because they felt uniforms contributed to discipline, and stopped children mocking each other about clothes. However 75% of these parents had not read about the Plan International UK report.
Parents were then asked whether they thought it was a good idea to have the name of the school on the uniform, and the majority (64%) answered no, mostly because they agreed that this would make it easier to stalk children. However most rejected the idea of having the same uniform throughout the country.
Our survey shows that although most parents are aware of the danger of schoolgirls being stalked, most of them also want us to keep the school uniform. Having said that, just under a third don’t want school uniforms at all.
