Basic education minister Siviwe Gwarube has set regulations aimed at eliminating discrimination against pregnant learners and supporting their retention in school.
About 30% of learners who fall pregnant do not return to school after giving birth, limiting their long-term socioeconomic upward mobility.
The draft regulations prohibit suspension or expulsion based on pregnancy and mandate access to education, care and support before and after childbirth.
According to the basic education department’s data, 11,400 children aged 10-14 years old have given birth since 2021. The number is much higher in the 15-19 age group, in which nearly 450,000 girls gave birth in the period.
The department collects data on learner pregnancies through the Education Management Information System (Emis), based on reports submitted by schools. However, this dataset is affected by underreporting as not all cases are disclosed to schools or accurately recorded.
To improve data accuracy, the basic education department has established a data-sharing protocol with the department of health that provides access to health-facility data on deliveries and pregnancy terminations among individuals aged 10–19 years.
One of the crucial features of the regulations is that they introduce a mandatory reporting requirement to police where a learner under the age of 16 years falls pregnant.
Gwarube said the regulations are designed to ensure that pregnant learners are supported to remain in school during pregnancy and can return to school after childbirth, without fear of expulsion or exclusion.
“We have moved away from a painful past where young girls were expelled or forced out of school due to pregnancy; these practices contributed to alarmingly high dropout rates. These regulations build on that progress and reaffirm our commitment to dignity, inclusion, and equal opportunity,” Gwarube said.
School principals will, under the regulations, be required to report the retention of learners during pregnancy and their return to schooling to their relevant grade after giving birth.
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Principals will also be barred from deregistering a learner who is registered for the National Senior Certificate examinations. If the pregnancy renders the learner medically unfit to complete the examinations, she must be allowed to write the next exams.
The regulations, which call for public comment, also provide for reasonable accommodation to be provided to pregnant learners, which may include modifying furniture to enable the learner to “safely and comfortably” continue their education at school.
If the child’s father is a staff member at the school, the matter must be reported to the police and the department of education for consequence management.
The Hey Baby study found that 75% of learners stayed in school when they fell pregnant and 70% returned to school after birth. Hey Baby is led by a team of researchers at Oxford University and the University of Cape Town.
The study also found that the following acted as protective factors for school return: lower household poverty, less grade repetition, continued schooling during pregnancy, childcare support (formal and informal) and less exclusive breastfeeding.
Various studies consistently identify gender inequality, poverty, gender-based violence, power imbalances, food insecurity, poor caregiver support, unsafe living conditions and weak co-ordination as the core structural drivers of learner pregnancy.
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