SA Minister backs protesting female students

Black pupils at the private Pretoria Girls High say they have often been told to straighten their hair.
“Schools should not be used as a platform to discourage students from embracing their African identity,” Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa tweeted in support.

The school’s code of conduct has a detailed list of rules about hair, but does not specifically mention the afro hairstyle, which some pupils say they are banned from having.

The minister also criticized the school over student complaints that they had been warned not to speak to each other in their own languages. “It is unacceptable to ban students from speaking their African languages at school”, he wrote on Twitter.