Part of education is learning that rules and laws are made for good reasons and need to be adhered to, even if they do not have unanimous support.

Education also involves teaching students, and apparently parents, that actions have consequences, and choosing to disobey or ignore rules or laws will result in some form of correction or punishment.

Finally, it is vital that school administrators have the power to enforce the rules of the school in a fair and even-handed way.

On the face of the above, most people would accept CedarBridge Academy's decision to send home those students who failed to show up wearing their school blazers on Monday.

The school had added justification for its decision because parents and students were advised as long ago as July that as of Monday, the day after the half term holiday, students would be required to wear winter uniforms, including blazers.

They were informed again on October 21 of the requirement. And students at CedarBridge, of all places, should have known more than at any other school of the requirement and the likely consequences because principal Kalmar Richards has made it abundantly clear that she is a stickler for correct uniforms.

Mrs. Richards is right to demand high standards for uniforms for the above reasons. The school has rules for uniforms and they should be upheld. Students who are well turned out tend to have more pride in themselves and in their school.

There are three arguments against the school's decision to send the children home that are worthy of consideration. The first is that the blazers, at $65 each, are expensive. That is true and it may be that not every parent can afford to spend that much money, especially if they have more than one child at the school who needs one.

As Chief Education Officer Dr. Joseph Christopher said though, if that was the case, the parents could have raised the problem with the school in advance.

And, as one parent said to this newspaper, parents have had months to buy the blazers and could have put aside just $5 a week in order to buy the blazers before this week.

The second argument is that the school over-reacted by sending the children home on the first day they were required to have the blazers,especially when the students have already lost valuable learning time due to the teachers' strike. The school could have warned those children without blazers that they must have them by Tuesday or they would be sent home. At least in that way they would not have lost a day of school.

But given the comments of some of the parents, it is unlikely that this would have made much difference on Tuesday; many of the students would still have shown up without their blazers.

The third and most compelling argument is that CedarBridge itself breached the Ministry of Education's new Code of Conduct with which it was supposed to be in compliance.

While the school's stance has a good deal of justification, it is a fact that it was required to follow the Ministry's rules, just as it requires the students to follow its rules.

It can be argued that there was not enough consultation with individual schools before the code was written and that individual schools should have more leeway in setting disciplinary standards. There is also good reason to believe that the steps laid out in the code of conduct will be less effective than the school's preferred approach.

Be that as it may, the school was supposed to follow the Code and did not. It therefore was not justified in sending the children home.