Hey there! I’m currently a high school student in Australia, I was born and raised here. I’ve had to wear a uniform almost everyday I’ve been in the public education system.

It’s frustrating.

There is no longer a point to uniforms, unless you’re in a private or religious school.

The average uniform costs a total of $160 or more for the necessities of a single shirt, pair of pants, a jacket and a hat.

I grew up without the best financial situation, the same goes for so many kids I knew throughout my school life. Sometimes our food budget would be capped at $100.

I want to put into perspective the fact that; a student is not accepted on school grounds out of uniform without being ridiculed by teachers, if they are not in possession of a note written by parents with what they classify as a “good reason”. And even then, you are expected for that to happen no more than once.

Australian schools have what is known as ‘mufti days’. Mufti Days a typically fundraiser days where students are allowed to wear casual clothing following a certain colour scheme if they bring a ‘gold coin donation’ [gold coins are worth $1/$2 in Australia and it’s basically just to distinguish them from other coins in a fancy way]. Once you reach high school, I’ve noticed they become extremely few and far between.

That is the only time you have permission to wear non-uniform clothing on school grounds during school hours unless told otherwise.

The point I’m trying to make is that; due to the price of uniforms, already struggling households have to fork over close to double their food budget just for their child to be accepted on the grounds of a school that is already taking tuition fees. The solution the government came up with for this was, not to just abolish the uniform policy. No, no, no… their solution was to invest money in advertisements painting these children as abused, ratty, problem kids that take plastic bags instead of backpacks to school and always wear the same uniform everyday. These advertisements aimed to increase uniform donations in second-hand clothing pools. Take a moment to think about that. They would rather invest money that paint struggling families as pathetic. Instead of simply just, abolishing uniform policy’s or giving a mandated price for public school uniform items that’s lower than $40 for a pair of shorts that’ll only ever be worn for a maximum of 6 years during a 6 hour period on weekdays.

I’m hoping to get the attention of parliament, and subsequently the DET with this so that something worthwhile is finally done. That something specifically being that the DETs public school uniform policy is abolished. If this doesn’t get anyones attention, well then nothing is done and there is absolutely no change. Please help make something happen, I’m begging you. I’m so tired of nothing changing, and I know so many other Australian students feel the same as me.

I’m happy to keep debating this, I just don’t want to make this too long. So until I’m able to write up a whole Google doc for this I’m gonna leave this here for now. I’m new to Change.org and still getting a feel for the site, but I’m very passionate about this subject.

That’s all for now, if I can update this after making it public I will. Thanks for reading though! Please consider signing this petition:)

[The image is from a PSA that went around around the mid-2010s I have permanently engraved in my memory about kids that live under the poverty line]