SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) -Oscar Melara, the director of a technical school in El Salvador, stations himself at the front gate every day to inspect dress code compliance as students file in.
Melara checks for infractions such as shirts missing a monogram or name tag, dirty shoes and long haircuts. He is following a directive issued by the nation’s new education minister, military captain Karla Trigueros.
While dress codes have long existed throughout the nation’s public schools, Trigueros’ directive gives administrators the power to ding students’ grades or require community service if they do not comply.
“We thank the minister, because this allows us to correct and better our students,” Melara said.
Local media showed videos of barber shops with lines out the door as students chopped off their locks, with some offering specials to take advantage of the new order.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele reposted a message on X cheering the new guidelines, which no longer allow hairstyles such as the mohawk or the so-called “Edgar cut,” a bowl cut-like style popularized in recent years by young Latinos, particularly in the U.S.
Trigueros herself has toured schools in recent days, often with a slicked-back bun and dressed in military fatigues.
Teachers’ groups have opposed her naming. The Salvadoran Teachers’ Front, in a statement last week, said putting a military official in charge of education was “absurd” and that it harkened back to the nation’s decades under military dictatorship.
Bukele, sharing the memorandum on X, argued that complete educational overhaul was needed in the Central American nation.
The leader is popular in El Salvador after launching a widespread gang crackdown that has slashed crime rates, though rights groups say innocent people have been caught up in the dragnet.
His party recently passed a constitutional reform scrapping presidential term limits, which critics say opens the door to Bukele staying in power indefinitely.
(Reporting by Nelson Renteria; Writing by Kylie Madry; Editing by Sandra Maler)
