I recently copy edited and proofread a doctoral dissertation about schooling for the
Karamojong, an indigenous, agro-pastoral ethnic group of almost a half million who live in northeast Uganda.
I read through many interview transcripts, and their teachers and the administrators of their schools, who were notably NOT of the same ethnic group, were fixated in their interview transcripts on the fact that the students did not wear shoes. I could not, for the life of me, understand how being barefoot impairs learning. I did my Latin and math homework barefoot for decades. I wrote 90% of my dissertation in a library office with my bare feet up on an ottoman under my desk. I have had at least three faculty instructors insist on taking of their shoes to lecture in their socks. Indeed, I would assume that agro-pastorialists who do not wear shoes by choice as a statement of their culture, would learn worse if made uncomfortable by unfamiliar footwear.
Research indicate that approx. 30% of 10-13 year olds in Canada suffer from myopia, but
not a single one of these adults in a position of power asked the obvious questions about whether the Karamojong students had the prescription eyeglasses they might need to read the blackboard and their homework assignments or the auditory devices they might need to hear their teachers. The problem was, apparently, that they came to school BAREFOOT. (They did, to their credit, acknowledge that the children were sometimes too hungry to focus and propose that the distribution of meals would improve attendance and performance).
The researcher and these education professionals also conveniently never mentioned the legacy of Idi Amin and his terror on their people as well as other, violent efforts to "civilise" the Karamojong by Ugandan authorities when identifying factors for why Karamojong parents are reluctant to send their children to state-run schools.
People in positions of power using dress, footwear, hair styles to gatekeep social services is paternalistic at best and racist at worst. If education is a child's right, then there can be no conditions. That is what being a "right" means. We should not be teaching our children that their basic human rights are contingent upon anything, let alone something as superficial as appearance. We should not be teaching our children to blindly trust that authorities, whether elected, appointed, or inherited, have their best interest at heart.