IN THE face of the deepening concern over declining discipline in Jamaican schools, separate but related actions recently by two high school principals deserve public commendation and support. They have to do with the principals' insistence that students adhere to their schools' dress codes.

The more recent of the events occurred at Camperdown High School in Kingston on Tuesday. There, headmistress Cynthia Cooke told several female students that their shoes, socks and hairstyles were inappropriate for school. Ms. Cooke sent the students home and closed the school's gate to prevent the girls' re-entry.

The response of the students was to demonstrate and to summon the media to witness their laboured and inarticulate attempt to make a case against school and principal and in favour of a sartorial free-for-all.Ms. Cooke's action, contrary to how it was portrayed during the school gate babel, was neither spontaneous nor targeted at any specific group of students. Indeed, at the end of the last school term students were warned that the wearing of 'bling' as part of their uniforms would not be tolerated. They were subsequently reminded that the rules would be enforced.

It may be argued, as did the education officer Avery McKenzie, in what can only be seen as an inappropriate public reprimand of Ms. Cooke, that the students and parents should have been provided detailed and specific information, in writing, about the type of footwear and hairstyles that would be disallowed. Perhaps.

Whether this happened or not, which is yet to be clarified, the students, their parents and/or their guardians should have a sense of what is appropriate for school as against the dancehall.

Maintaining a dress code is not only about regimentation, the establishment of a school's identity or the pursuit of an egalitarian ideal. It is, in large part, about instilling in young people a sense of order and discipline, without which societies become dysfunctional.

It is in this context that we support the efforts of Ms. Cooke and Ms. June Thompson, the principal of Rusea'sHigh School in Hanover, who a week ago sent home 45 students who were out of uniform for the school's sports day. All Ruseas students were informed that the sports day would be treated as a normal school day; they would assemble on campus in their uniforms and march to a nearby sports complex for the games. Some students defied this and turned up at the games in informal dress. They claim that it was how it used to be until Ms. Thompson changed the rules.

If that is the case, then so be it. Indeed, we are surprised that some parents, even with the head teacher's decision to delay the punishment until after mock exams, have balked at this effort to enforce discipline and to create an environment for effective learning. We are even more surprised that an education officer would publicly lecture a principal, in a seeming off-hand interview, about procedures for imposing discipline; which is what appears to have happened to Ms. Cooke at Camperdown.

It would seem to us that the appropriate response of an education officer in such a circumstance, would be to indicate that a proper investigation or review of the issues would take place.

If a review shows that the principal acted precipitously or outside the rules, that should be stated in a calm and measured fashion that maintains the rights of all stakeholders without diminishing the authority of the head teacher. We have to be careful about transforming schools into anarchical free-for-alls.