by Barbara Lopi
At 17, Maureen, a former pupil at a high school in Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, faces a bleak future because she has been expelled from school barely few months before writing her ‘0’ level exams due in October this year for being pregnant.
Maureen however, is not alone in her plight that continues to disadvantage many girls from enjoying their right and access to education, throughout Southern Africa.
Immediate expulsion is a common penalty that applies to female students who fall pregnant while in school or undergoing training in most countries in the Southern African region, with Malawi being one of the few exceptions.
In Zimbabwe, a married female student teacher expelled for falling pregnant while undergoing training at Belvedere Technical Teacher’s College in Harare has challenged the decision through the high court.
Last year, Malawi embarked on a pilot exercise to allow pregnant girls to continue with their education, with the view to do away with the law that bar pregnant girls from school. This is part of that country’s efforts to improve the educational level of the girl-child.
As the target date of the global goal of Education for All by the Year 2000 draws near, countries in the region are realising how the expulsion of female students who fall pregnant is impacting on their chances to realise the global challenge. With only four years to go, it is evident that many countries might not meet the goal of Education for All in the year 2000.
Mindful of their slim chances to attain the global challenge, countries in the southern Africa sub-region are taking a leaf from the Malawian experience so that they could at least narrow the gap in educational levels attained by females and males by removing laws that discriminate against the girl child and female youths in schools.
A Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services (CDSS) in Zambia, Hellen Matanda, appealed to govemment to start allowing pregnant girls to continue with their education.
“My appeal to the government is that pregnant girls should not be expelled from school. They should just be suspended for a year and allowed back into school after giving birth. Malawi has done it and they seem to be doing very fine,” said Matanda on Television Zambia early this year.
In the same vein, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is negotiating with the government of Botswana to allow pregnant teenagers to continue with their studies in schools until their delivery days. A senior UNICEF official in Gaborone, Pearl Matome said teenage pregnancy in Botswana was causing concern, noting that the trend has disadvantaged many women to acquire employment.
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Director for the sub-regional office for Southern Africa based in Harare, Dr Anderson Shankanga, who is a Zambian national, feels it is high time governments and societies in the region started adopting strategies that do not deny anyone, regardless of age or sex, the right to education. “Negative authoritative attitude is not the right approach. The basic principle should be that, nobody should be denied the right to education, be they young, old, male or female, because that is the whole purpose of the ‘Education for All’ declaration,” said Dr Shankanga in an interview.
He added that pregnancy should not deprive girls from enjoying their right to education, but should be seen as a problem that calls for our societies to discuss the problem objectively and come up with solutions.
It is being argued in Botswana, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Zambia that laws that bar pregnant girls from continuing their studies border on gender discrimination and are a hindrance to the educational advancement of females.
Other arguments against the idea of withdrawing pregnant girls or female youths permanently from schools are that, the act does not solve any problems, but instead creates many more, because the pregnant girl’s burden is passed on to the unborn baby.
“Calls to review the laws that bar female youths from continuing their education once they fall pregnant are long overdue. These laws do not solve any problem for the female child nor society at large,” says Frank Chelu, a freelance consultant in Education and Development issues in Zambia.
The selection of candidates to junior and senior Secondary School in Zambia is based on the ratio of two girls to three boys. This formula corresponds with school places available in Secondary Schools, and coupled with the expulsion of pregnant girls and other economic factors, more females drop out of school than boys.
Some people however, are against the idea of allowing pregnant girls in primary and secondary school levels to remain in school saying the move will encourage immorality among the school girls.
“If the Malawians are doing it, that is their business, I don’t think it will be morally right for us here in Zambia to do the same. Allowing pregnant girls in schools is like giving these girls licences to go and indulge in sex,” commented one civil servant in Zambia, in reaction to Matanda’s appeal to government.
Scholars in the region are arguing that expulsion of girls or female youths because of pregnancy put the remaining females who are already outnumbered by males in an overwhelming minority.
“A minority feeling can sometimes inhibit self-expression and full participation in the critical stages of the training,” says Professor Richard Mkandawire, the Regional Director at the Commonwealth Youth Programme for Africa Centre, in a paper he presented at the sub-regional training workshop for planners of the girl-child education.
Experience has shown that educated mothers have better understanding of basic knowledge on health and better living, thereby saving the lives of many, and improving the well-being of children and mothers.
It therefore remains a challenge for governments in the region that if empowerment of people through knowledge is an important goal for basic education, then there is a strong case for “affirmative action” in support of expanding basic education for girls and the strategy is to let pregnant girls continue schooling. (SARDC).
