PREGNANT GIRLS CAN NO LONGER BE EXPELLED IN ZIMBABWE

The government of Zimbabwe has amended laws which expelled pregnant girls from school- a strategy to help tackle growing disparities among students and also encouraging more girls to get educated.

According to Zimbabwean media, a legal amendment was announced last week and it seeks to reinforce a 1999 guideline that was implemented earlier

The decision aims to mitigate the rise in sexual abuse and unwanted pregnancies as schools have been closed since the Coronavirus pandemic struck. 

“I’m expecting every parent and guardian and everyone else to understand that every child must be assisted by all of us to go to school,” Cain Mathema, the education minister in charge of schools, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation this week

“Every child whether boy or girl… has a right to go to school in Zimbabwe,” he said. 

In 2018, 12.5% of the country’s roughly 57,500 school dropouts stopped attending classes due to pregnancy or marriage reasons – almost all of the girls, according to Education Ministry statistics.

Sibusisiwe Ndlovu, the communications specialist at Plan International Zimbabwe welcomed the new legislation as a step in the right direction.

 “This amendment is crucial in fulfilling the access to education right for all children – especially girls,” Ndlovu said.

Source: Peacefmonline