Haryana CM Khattar Says No Orders Banning Jeans For Teachers

Chandigarh: Two days after Haryana education department had asked government school teachers not to wear jeans to work, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar said on Saturday that no such orders were issued.

Teacher wears jeans in School.

An order for banning jeans was issued on 4 June by Director of Elementary Education, Haryana (Panchkula).

“It has been observed that teachers in primary and middle schools come to schools in jeans. They are also found in jeans while visiting office of Directorate for some work which is inappropriate,” said the order which was send to all District Elementary Education Officers.

“Kindly ensure that no teacher should come to schools/Directorate in jeans and they should be in formal dress,” the order further said.

Haryana Vidyalaya Adhyapak Sangh has strongly condemned the order while describing it as state government’s move to divert attention from its “failures”.

“It is an absolutely wrong order of the government to fix the dress code for teachers. It should be left to teachers what he wants to wear. Teacher’s job is to teach and he can teach in jeans or in dhoti,” Haryana Vidyalaya Adhyapak Sangh, president Wazir Singh said today adding that the order was issued two days back.

“With such orders, the government wanted to divert attention of teachers from issues concerning education department. The government’s job is to prepare budget, transfers, appointments, etc, which is not being done,” he said.

“We will protest against this diktat and meet senior officials of Education department on June 16 in Panchkula in this regard,” Singh said.

However, when asked to comment on the issue by the media in Chandigarh, Khattar denied that the government had passed such order prohibiting teachers from wearing jeans to work.

n 2012, the Women and Child Development Department of Haryana had also ordered women employees to wear “decent” clothes while on the field. The order had reportedly said that women should either wear salwar-kameez or saree. The order was withdrawn after several protests.