Some students out of uniforms, not by choice

/ Yonhap

By Lee Ji-hye

There is a reason why many students are wearing clothing other than school uniforms – it is a case of a reason within a reason.

Public schools are required from this year to purchase uniforms in bulk from one provider, instead of allowing students to buy whatever brand they like.

The obvious benefit is lower prices. But this sometimes comes at the cost of quality and a delay in delivery of orders that overwhelm suppliers who are smaller in scale than the big brands.

For more than 40 schools in Seoul, uniform manufacturers have failed to deliver on time.

"I chose not to buy my son's uniform with the group purchasing at school, because there was one company that he really liked in particular, but they changed the school badge so the company didn’t have it," said a parent surnamed Kim, 43, from Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province.

"I called the company (that the school bought uniforms from) because we had no other choice, but they simply didn’t have any in stock, so we couldn't buy it because we hadn't signed up for the group purchase to begin with."

Other parents complained about the clothing's quality.

A parent surnamed Park, 44, in Seoul, Guro-gu, said, "The jacket was so stiff _ it didn’t feel right."

The Korea Uniform Association said the Ministry of Education enforced the new policy without thinking that it takes eight to 10 months to make a complete set of school uniforms.

Jin Sang-joon, its president, said, "The deadline cannot be met within a short period of time, when schools expect a single company to provide uniforms for over 200 new students at the high school."

Under the guidelines, the highest price is 204,316 won ($180.61) for winter uniforms and 82,572 won ($72.99) for summer attire.

The education ministry's student welfare policy director, Kang Byeong-ku, said “Students do not necessarily have to wear uniforms on the first day of school, and it is up to each individual school to make its own decisions.

"The policy is to decrease by at last 34 percent the original uniform price.

"We gave parents of the students an option to select whether or not they wished to take part in purchasing uniforms as a group."