Some of them are old enough to go to war, to fight for their country.

Some are old enough to vote or go to the pub. But still no whiskers.

'Our rule is clean-shaven,” says Tauranga Boys' College principal Robert Mangan.

Recently, some Kapiti College students launched an online petition demanding Year 13 boys have the right to wear beards to school. 'We are allowed to express ourselves through clothes,” says one of the petitioners, Anthony McEwen. 'So why can't we express ourselves through facial hair?”

Kapiti College Year 13s are allowed to wear mufti and the girls can use make-up. But if a male student turns up with facial hair, he's taken out of class and ordered to shave with a provided razor.

'I guess once they let Year 13 go mufti they created the feeling or belief that mufti includes facial hair,” says Robert. 'And if that happens, you will get students pushing back a little if you are trying to have some rules or regulations but have removed others.

'Certainly in terms of uniform.”

Tauranga Boys' College doesn't have mufti but it does have an alternative uniform. 'They wear a white shirt and we will talk about that being symbolic of leadership and role-modelling to the juniors in the school,” says Robert. 'And part of that will be their grooming, in terms of their role modelling and what the boys further down will expect from them.”

So is stubble an issue at Tauranga Boys' College?

'We try to work with the boys.” And this week the college was probably more proactive because some of the young men were returning hirsute from two-and-a-half weeks' holiday. 'We would give them a couple of days to be compliant. If needed we would have involved parents to explain the rules, and the rules are clean shave.”

Robert's unaware of any instances where students have gone non-compliant for any period of time.

It's about process. And the principal says if he'd been involved in the Kapiti College dilemma he would have talked the boys through the process. 'Because a petition isn't a good process.” Even though the Kapiti College petition had reportedly received nearly 300 signatures from as far afield as Auckland, Christchurch, Australia and Britain.

For example, Tauranga Boys' College has a student board representative. 'That student representative would come to the board table and talk to the board's uniform committee about changing or including a new or different item of uniform.”

Ultimately the uniform and grooming rules are a decision made by a board of trustees, who are elected parent representatives. 'We work with parents to say: ‘Okay, this is the way it works'. And we try to reach common ground as best we can.”