Nairobi: Court orders school to allow Rastafarian girl resume studies

A Nairobi court on Tuesday ordered Olympic High School to allow a Rastafarian student back to school pending judgement of the case on May 3, 2019.

While delivering the ruling, the court also directed the minor to keep her hair neat and fully covered by a turban.

This came after her father testified that all their family members are Rastafarians and that they are forbidden by the Bible from cutting their hair.

The father, through counsel Wambui Shadrack, moved to court on January 14, 2019, and sued the school’s Board of Governors for sending home the Form One girl when she reported to school on January 10.

He stated that the girl was in class when she was summoned by the deputy head teacher who sent her away ordering that she only returns to school after shaving her dreadlocks.

“I have sought audience with the deputy head teacher, headmaster and education officer based in Kibra and explained that the dreadlocks are as a result of cultural and religious beliefs and no one has listened to us,” said the father in his suit.

He argued that his 15-year-old fourth-born daughter, the subject of the suit, attended and completed her primary school education at the Shadrack Kimalel Primary School, Ngumo and scored 282 marks in her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education with no interference with her hairstyle.