Can a school principal cut students' hair without their consent, even if he has barber skills and the school has regulations against hair covering boy's eyebrows or ears?

After repeated admonishments and warnings at a middle school in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, a principal took matters into his own hands and summoned two dozen boys to the sports field on Friday morning.

"I just made it shorter," said the principal, surnamed Huang.

"They can go to a barbershop and make it better, but I was taught hair styling, so I didn't ruin their hair."

The school's regulation applies to all of China's middle-school campuses, but it flies in the face of styles popularized by South Korean and Japanese pop stars.

While the principal considers long hair a bad influence, his action angered many netizens, who argued that what he did violated the youngsters' rights.

Many others, however, approved of Huang's actions.

The majority of the students at Huang's school are so-called left-behind children whose parents work in coastal cities far from home. As a result, the kids grow without the parental guidance and discipline otherwise available at home.

"The task falls on the teachers and staff of the school as nobody else will teach the kids what to do and what not to," Huang said.

Though the education department praised his sense of responsibility, it told him to "calibrate the way he handles such things".

Huang admits that some students hold a grudge against him. But then, he said, "most abide by the rule, and only a few have rebelled against it."

"I should have resorted to other means," he said about the incident, adding that students should project a sunny image and not look like "scoundrels and villains".

raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn