High dropout rate - Pregnant learners need support to finish their schooling

In the Northern Cape Joe Morolong Local Municipality, only half the learners who start primary school make it to high school, and only 15% of all residents finish Grade 12, according to a recent report from the education department.

The Northern Cape Education Department has cited teenage pregnancy as a contributor to high dropout rates. Its Zero Dropout Campaign report documents worrying school dropout and completion rates in the province.

Other factors include a lack of parental support, unsafe journeys to school, pressure to earn an income, and taking risks to get noticed by “better-resourced groups”, such as criminal gangs and sugar daddies.

“Very few girls go back to school after giving birth,” says Frederick Ocansey of the Yethu Club in Kuruman, which is focused on reducing dropout rates.

Ocansey said they are approached by parents, school staff and members of the community who are concerned that a learner is at risk of dropping out. “We will then speak to the learner involved. Where the situation is too difficult for us to resolve, we involve a counsellor and a social worker,” he said.

He said the community has high unemployment.

“We see how appalling the economic situation is and we see how most of the learners, especially the girls — because they don’t have much support from their parents — get resources from older boys and as a result, some of them get pregnant and drop out of school,” said Ocansey.

He said the education department should provide more counsellors at schools to help pregnant learners cope and to encourage them to finish their schooling. “They need to be motivated that they still need to be educated even though they are pregnant,” said Ocansey.