* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
If we are serious about educating girls we must extend free schooling to cover three years of senior high, not just the first
Ghana has been hailed as a global education champion over the last decade. In 2008, we were the first sub-Saharan country to make two years pre-primary mandatory. In 2012, thirty-seven per cent of Ghana’s total government expenditure was spent on education.
Yet despite investing in schooling, the ministry of education faces a serious challenge: teen pregnancy. In the Volta region – where I teach – one in four children is a teen mum. Further south along the Atlantic coast that figure jumps to one in three.
A report commissioned by the Ghanaian Ministry of Education in 2012 revealed that 89 per cent of girls finished primary school. However, just 62 per cent completed junior high school, and only 32 per cent went on to graduate from senior high school. When you look behind the statistics adolescent pregnancy is a major factor in female drop-out rates.
A study by the University of Ghana revealed that in Chorkor, a deprived area outside Accra, amongst the 50 teenage pregnant girls interviewed 86% were not in school. This pattern is replicated across the country. Pregnant teens and adolescent mothers are being left behind in Ghana’s booming oil economy.
As a science teacher and education campaigner I see how girls’ education is undervalued.Enrolment of girls especially in schools in rural communities is very low. Some of my students go to school on an empty stomach. They find it difficult to get three square meals.
When girls finish junior high, parents’ think their daughters have come of age. If they get pregnant, they expect them to get married or find some menial job to cater for themselves and the child.
A failure to prioritise girls’ education, the high rate of poverty in some rural communities, and lack of understanding about contraception has left many girls changing diapers instead of staying in school. Some of these vulnerable girls are taken advantage of by some men as a result of poverty.
Despite the hardship, some girls return to education. Patricia, one of the brightest girls in her class, fell pregnant at 16. She left school and moved in with the man who impregnated her. Soon after he started to mistreat her. When she talked about returning to school he threatened to stop supporting her and their child.
Patricia returned to school two years after giving birth. She now supports herself and her son by selling smoked fish. “I knew I had to make a brighter future for myself and my child,” she told me. Next year she hopes to pass her senior high certificate. She dreams of becoming a nurse.
In 2016 a government directive guaranteeing pregnant girls and student mothers the right to an education was issued in every head teachers handbook across Ghana. Teachers cannot legally expel students, but they do not need too. Stigma and poverty keep girls out of the classroom.
Ahead of this year’s Day of the African Child we have to do more to support teen mothers who are missing out on an education. There are over 94,000 adolescent girls out of school in Ghana. Many of them are either pregnant or teen mothers. We need a strategic policy that actively encourages them back in to education.
Investment currently stops short when adolescent mothers need it most - at the senior high school level. The government is doing well with its flagship Free Senior High Policy, but if we are serious about educating girls we must extend free schooling to cover three years of senior high, not just the first.
