Learner pregnancy in South Africa’s Eastern Cape: The Factors affecting adolescent girls' school withdrawal during pregnancy |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Social Policy and Intervention, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom;2. School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom;3. Department of Psychiatry, University of Cape Town, South Africa;4. Optentia, Faculty of Health Sciences, North-West University, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa |
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| Abstract: | An early pregnancy often puts an end to a girls’ education. However, few studies have investigated which factors affect adolescents’ school discontinuation during pregnancy. This study interviewed 1,046 adolescent mothers from the Eastern Cape province in South Africa. The results showed that a quarter of school-going adolescent girls withdrew from school during the pregnancy - many as early as the first trimester. School withdrawal was associated with higher poverty, higher grade repetition, an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy, and greater lack of information about the pregnancy. Given the high enrolment rates at the onset of the pregnancy, school-based services may provide an opportunity to identify which girls require substantial support to remain in education throughout pregnancy, using a history of poor school performance as an indicator for dropout. |
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| Keywords: | adolescent girls and young women adolescent pregnancy adolescent mothers schooling school dropout education South Africa |
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