Peru's Fujimori announces school expulsions and bans on makeup and hair dye

The plan

Peru's president Keiko Fujimori presented a plan on Monday, 12 October, to tighten discipline in public schools. She spoke at an event in Chaclacayo, about 30 km east of the capital Lima, accompanied by Education Minister José Antonio Chang, and the two presented the guidelines during a visit to the Felipe Santiago Estenos school. The rules are meant to cover pupils' behaviour, appearance, clothing and use of electronic devices, and the government says the aim is to combat violence and harassment in classrooms. Fujimori took office in July 2026 and has made restoring order her main political cause, with her campaign plan called "Perú con Orden". She is the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori, who ruled from 1990 to 2000 and died in 2024, spending much of his last years in prison after being convicted of massacres of civilians and other crimes against humanity.

Order is not only on the streets. It also has to return to our schools, to our classrooms.

Expulsions and conduct grades

The plan brings back harsher penalties for breaches of school rules, including expulsion for the most serious offences. Conduct grades would return, and violations would be divided into light, serious and especially serious categories. The strictest sanctions would target violence, persistent harassment of other pupils, sexual assault and other serious safety breaches. Fujimori called on children and young people to tell their teachers about bullying by classmates and said that "We will not allow bullying, violence or sexual assault." She argued that expulsions would protect the large majority of pupils who come to learn, since the most undisciplined would no longer sit in classrooms.

Appearance and phones

Chang said the rules would ban makeup, nail painting, excessively long hair and hair dye in public schools. Boys would have to arrive with short hair, and the government would set the permitted skirt length for girls along with rules on hair length. Use of mobile phones and other electronic devices would be limited, and they could be used in class only with a teacher's consent. The minister said the rules would apply to all public schools, while private schools could continue to write their own regulations.

Consultation and criticism

The guidelines are still at the consultation stage. Once they are finally approved, public schools would have 30 days to adapt their own rules. Former vice minister for pedagogical management Ana Andrade Pacora told EL PAÍS that the measures amount to a declared renunciation by schools of educating young people in an integral way. She considers the restrictions on girls' clothing sexist, and her verdict on the plan was direct:

I think these are absolutely mistaken measures and will set us back as a society more than three decades.

The plan is set against a country hit by extortion and killings by organised crime, a problem Fujimori has placed at the centre of her agenda.