Moral decadence in tertiary institutions is becoming rampant daily. Institutions of learning that are supposed to be the centres of moral values have become the grounds for all forms of immoral activities.
Before now, decency, especially in dressing, is identified as a vital feature of the African culture. Decency in dressing has so much to do with acceptable moral values and qualities of appearance of an individual or group of persons. A dress is said to be indecent when it is morally offensive; that is, if it exposes the vital parts of the body that are meant to be covered. As the truism goes, “the way you dress, so you will be addressed.”
Like other vices, such as drug abuse, cultism and prostitution, indecent dressings in our tertiary institutions have become the order of the day. The “dress to kill” syndrome is rampant among students, particularly the ladies. They dress with the aim of looking extremely sensory, forgetting that they ought to look responsible and radiant.
Today, ladies deliberately expose sensitive parts of their bodies to draw the attention of the opposite gender. This manner of dressing has been condemned by many right-thinking individuals who see it as improper and unacceptable, because it portrays the highest level immorality.
This immorality is not limited to campuses, but also the larger society. On streets and in public places, it is common to see people almost nude all in the name of modern fashion. Ladies dressing in obscene clothes go about without shame. Although, it is not only the ladies who dress indecently today, even men have been going nude.
Sagging of trousers known as “low waist” or “ass down” is the order of the day. In addition to wearing of skimpy clothes called fitted, strapless shirts which show cleavages, they are other kinds of wears, such as short blouses, off-shoulder common among students. These are major problems associated with decency in dressing.
Different reasons have been advanced as to why students dress indecently. These include poor parenting, peer pressure, wrong use of the Internet, fading traditional values as well as demonic influence. The negative implications of indecent dressing, especially among female students are that, they fall victims of rape on campus; they are lured into prostitution by their friends, because of the way they dress. They are also likely to be influenced to become join bad gangs. All these result to poor academic performance.
To address these problems, measures need to be taken by government and the authorities of tertiary institutions by increasingly sensitising and educating students about the dangers associated with immorality and indecent dressing. Staff and students should be given periodic orientation on the need for good moral conducts. They should be educated on what is expected of them and why moral values are required in man’s life.
Although it is of note that some higher institutions have made efforts to reduce the cases of indecent dressing through introduction of dress codes for students. Stringent regulations to enforce students’ compliance have been introduced in some schools. These rules are strictly enforced, mandating lecturers send student who do not dress in accordance with the code out of lecture rooms. These efforts are highly commendable.
But the fact remains that charity begins at home. For these rules to be properly enforced, members of management must lead by good examples. This implies that they must also dress decently.
As Omede Jacob of the Department of Educational Psychology at the Kogi State College of Education, Ankpa, noted in 2011. “The problem is not just in making the rules but in their enforcements. For these rules to be enforced properly, lecturers should be made to collaborate with the college or university management staff and their security personnel. Lecturers are to be empowered to prevent indecently dressed students from attending their lectures, refuse to attend to such students in their areas of needs. The administrative staff should disallow such students from their offices while the security staff should serve as watchdogs.”
This tells us that, dress codes can be properly enforced on campuses through the collective efforts of management, staff and security personnel of tertiary institutions.
To further complement the efforts of management in curtailing the immorality, parents should also be of good moral examples to their children. Parents should monitor and regulate the films their children watch at homes. It is believed that, through home videos and satellites television, wrong values, fashions are traded across cultures and nations.
As agents of socialisation, the mass media must promote values that will help change the belief of the youth from the immoral dressing. Publication or showing of indecently dressed young girls in the name of advertisement should be discouraged. Radio and television programmes that promote moral values and the sanctity of chastity should always be transmitted.
There is also the need to regulate the use of Internet especially among the youth. This is because majority of youths get exposed to these immoral activities on the Internet. The amount of pornographic videos, sensual advertisements, obscene fashion shows and music that are being spread across boundaries unregulated explains this better.
Indispensably, the role of religious leaders is also needed to combat immorality in our society. Clergymen must base their preaching on immorality in the society and counsel the youth under demonic influence.
•Ahmad, 400-Level, Mass Comm., NSUK
