A middle and high school in central Vietnam is considering barring female teachers from wearing short skirts in the classroom, for fear that students and the educators themselves may get into unexpected awkward situations.

Educators at Viet Trung Middle and High School, located in Quang Binh Province, recently received draft regulations from its management that ban female teachers from putting on skirts that are too short to school in the 2013-14 academic year, according to Le Van Ha, the school’s president.

Ha said that school teachers are encouraged to voice their opinions about the draft before an official document is formulated.

“We will release the official rules once we have reached a consensus,” Ha said.

The president explained that the draft is intended to prevent female teachers from getting into embarrassing circumstances in their students’ presence, as they may accidentally reveal body parts in the classroom.

Long skirts and maternity dresses, however, will be permitted in class, the draft regulations say.

A provincial education official has warned the school about the appropriateness of any regulation it may issue.

“There is no ruling in the educational system that prohibits female teachers from donning short skirts,” Doan Duc Liem, director of the Quang Binh Department of Education and Training, said. “Though each school is allowed to introduce its own rules, they should be drawn up in a correct and proper manner.”   

The school should carefully review this specific instruction and act accordingly, Liem advised.

Media reports said that one Viet Trung female teacher once had her skirt blown up by fans in a classroom, causing her students to laugh out loud. This incident has led to the release of the draft.

Vietnamese schools can be strict when it comes to attire at times, as evidenced by a high school in the Mekong Delta which recently sent home nearly 100 students for wearing trousers with leg openings that were deemed too small.

The concerned educators explained that there was a fad in which boys and girls wore leg-hugging trousers to look fashionable at school, which “is not suitable in the educational environment.”

Only half of the dismissed students returned to the classroom later. A local education official then criticized that “the dismissal was inappropriate,” amid differing opinions in local media on the expulsion. 

The school year in Vietnam officially begins in early September and concludes in late May or early June.