Pregnant girls should not be expelled from school

By Scholastica Haule

Apart from the Government demonstrating its commitment to improve education by allocating Sh1.86 trillion in the 2007/08 budget, the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training is faced with a challenge of pregnant girls dropping out of school year after year.

Statistics from the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training show that more than 3,000 primary school girls are expelled every year because of pregnancies. This is a serious problem and it should be declared a national crisis like the way HIV/Aids and malaria are.

School pregnancies aggravate the poverty trap among girls and affect poverty reduction initiatives as stipulated in MKUKUTA.

Although the current education policy does not explicitly call for expulsion of pregnant school girls, what is happening is that pregnant girls are not allowed to continue with their studies.

The logic behind this is to preserve cultural values whereby a girl is required to abstain from sexual intercourse until she marries. The idea is good as it focuses on protecting both girls and boys against HIV/Aids risks.

It is a fact that a pregnant girl who becomes a young mother will not be able to support her child because she is inexperienced and financially not able to support herself and her baby. She is also not well informed on family responsibilities.

Therefore, most pregnant girls end up in difficult circumstances and lack support from family members and the society at large. As a result, they engage in most exploitative work like house help, which is a lowly paid job and some engage in prostitution.

If we accept that education is necessary for our development, we should be flexible and support pregnant girls to access education through adult education. Through this system they will be able to cope with emerging challenges in a more positive way.

When launching a Dar es Salaam fund raising campaign for the construction of secondary schools recently, President Jakaya Kikwete said by strengthening education beyond our primary level our people would be able to progress. This needs social reforms from family to national level.

There should be joint efforts to rescue girls from getting pregnant. Parents, teachers and religious leaders should work together and provide appropriate sexual education and talk about the effects of irresponsible sex.

Girls need moral and material support to realize their potential. Thus, the Government should provide a policy and legislation to protect the girls’ wellbeing and establish rehabilitative institutions for them.