YMB - //The main idea behind a uniform is that is equalises the pupils, particularly rich and poor.
By removing this equalisation you are introducing issues into the school, whether they be bullying or elitism. Schools should be for learning not for scoring political or religious points. And that applies to all religions. //
I am with YMB on this one.
The purpose of uniform is to enforce a school identity, not a religious preference - so by singling out small girls, it sets them aside from their peer group, which negates the purpose of uniform.
So to use an item of uniform to defeat the purpose of wearing a uniform seems bizarre in the extreme.
As I understand it from discussing this with the present Mrs Hughes who works in Abu Dhabi schools on a regular basis, the hijab is only worn by secondary school pupils, and never by primary children.
This seems a combination of parents who want to flaunt their devotion through their small children, even though it is not a proscribed religious observance that a hijab is worn before puberty, and schools who want to be seen as right-on and unwilling to appear prejudiced.
When small girls are marked out as different in order to appease the nonsense from two sets of adults who, by definition, as parents and as educators, should both know better, then something is seriously wrong.