The whole concept of school uniforms is ridiculous in this day and age. Soldiers wear uniforms, police wear uniforms, the reason being so they may all be easily identified; the wearing of uniforms by children is quite pointless.
Not only that but it is a further burden on parents. All of the uniform wearing fraternity have the uniforms supplied by (mostly) the Government, so if you have to have uniforms, then the Government should have to provide them - they charge enough tax on everything - including food!
Most of the Scandinavian countries provide free schooling and, as a result, produce better-educated children. We lag very far behind, so much so that we do not have any science or maths teachers in Rotorua, and we are desperately short of skilled personnel in all walks of life. The Government of New Zealand, wake up! Children - educated children - are the future.
JIM ADAMS
Rotorua
Re Sir Bob Jones' controversial article.
It seems we are censured on the type of humour we enjoy. Sir Robert Jones' article that has aroused the ire of the racist-sniffers will no doubt have a lot of oldies laughing out loud.
As Professor Paul Moon suggested, Sir Robert's writing was in the style known as satire.
This was often used by Roman orators to needle their opponents in a nice kind of way.