15 pregnant girls drop-out of school

15 pregnant girls drop-out of school 

Kapiri Mposhi, 4 February, 2014, ZANIS – Over 15 girls at Palamedes Basic School in Kapiri Mposhi district have withdrawn from school owing to pregnancies.

 

School head teacher Edward Kunda disclosed this in an interview with ZANIS over the weekend.

 

Mr. Kunda said cases of girls falling pregnant have become rampant at the learning institution forcing most of them to quit school.

 

He said last year in 2014 almost the similar number of girls also fell  pregnant and consequently stopped school.

 

Meanwhile, Kapiri Mposhi District Education Board Secretary (DEBS), Sunday Mwape has challenged parents to take a leading role in providing moral education to their children.

 

Mr. Mwape said parents had a crucial role to play in molding the characters of their children in order for them to avoid engaging themselves in vices such as to premarital sex.

 

He said teachers are bound by the school syllabus and do not go very far in providing moral education adding that parents needed to help teachers because they stay with the children.

 

And Mr. Mwape has advised girls who fall pregnant while in school to take advantage of the government’s re-entry policy.

 

Mr. Mwape said girls who fall pregnant while in school should not be discouraged and forced into marriage but seek for maternity leave which has been provided for in the re-entry policy and continue with their education later after giving birth.