Teenage pregnancies in schools have become one of the biggest problems across the country over the years, and although the Departments of Health and Education has made some attempts, they still have not found a solution to this problem.
One of the approaches the departments used was introducing sex education and distributing free condoms to learners at schools, but alas. In the end, schools had to come up with their own initiatives to address the problem. The departments even gave SGBs the go-ahead to lay out their own policies around pregnant learners – as long as these kept the situation under control.
Most schools in the Vhembe District have adopted a policy that forces parents to accompany their pregnant children to school every day to watch and take care of them, until they give birth.
The Edison Nesengani Secondary School in Vuwani, one of the top-performing schools in the Vhuronga 1 Circuit in Vhembe, adopted this same policy five years ago. Things got somewhat heated, though, when a well-known local advocate took to Facebook and wrote "Dear Nesengani [community members]. Please give me details of all parents who [are] forced to be at school every day because their children are pregnant."
The SGB chairperson of the school, Mr Takalani Ralufhe, said that they had not encountered any problems so far. He even went so far as to say that pregnancies in their school had decreased since they had adopted this policy. Their view around this seems to be that "teachers in the school know nothing about postnatal care", and that the parents ultimately have the responsibility to take care of their pregnant children themselves. Ralufhe said this policy had been discussed in a meeting between the SGB and parents, where all agreed to it.
Ms Pfarelo Mathivha, a well-known social worker from the ISA Foundation in Vuwani, said the situation should be looked at in a balanced way. "Most of the learners get pregnant as a result of poverty. Asking parents to stop going to their jobs and accompanying a child to school will just worsen the poverty situation."
Spokesperson for the Limpopo Department of Education Tidimalo Chuene said that schools were allowed to have their own policies, as long as these were not in conflict with the department's policies. "The compulsory requirement of parents to accompany learners [to school] is deemed wrong and this matter is being followed up with the school. However, we know of one parent at the school who has volunteered to closely monitor her daughter, who is highly pregnant (eight months)," she said.