Wrong to have pregnant, nursing students
Education CS George Magoha (in orange tie) speaks to students including a pregnant teenager in Siaya County on February 5, 2020. The CS ordered that two pregnant teenagers be admitted at a local boarding school.
What you need to know:
- Pregnant learners are safe at home; they will not concentrate in class and, hence, are likely to end up learning nothing if forced back to school.
The recent directive by the ministries of Education and Interior to forcibly return schoolgirls who are pregnant or have recently delivered babies back to school is not only illegal but inhuman and out of touch with reality.
Ironically, it is the same government that passed a law requiring employers in both the private and public sectors to give a minimum of three months paid leave to workers expecting babies.
So, why on earth is the government treating these mostly teenage girls, some of whom are traumatised by their situation, like criminals by ignoring the law?
Being first-term mothers, the girls deserve special attention. Besides, they are undergoing a lot of ridicule, harassment and shaming. Forcing them to go back to school might drive some of them into making fatal decisions like committing suicide.
President Uhuru Kenyatta had instructed local administrators to arrest men who defiled these underage girls but his directive seems to have fallen on deaf ears. I am sure every girl knows who defiled them and, in case of contestation, DNA can correctly identify the culprits.
Why punish the victims and spare the perpetrators of crime?
Robert Musamali, Nairobi
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The ‘new norm’ arising from the Covid-19 pandemic is sure to transform our lives. But we must not tamper with school rules, regardless of the number of pregnancies among students. The numbers will reduce once the spread of the coronavirus is contained and the school timetable goes back to its original form.
It is unthinkable that the government lacks the money to finance social distancing, hygiene and other requirements to curb the virus in school yet provides special bathrooms and diet for pregnant learners. That is as good as legalising and promoting pregnancies among learners.
You can now expect more learners to want to become pregnant so as to receive the special treatment in schools, yet it is a result of their careless behaviour.
Pregnant learners are safe at home; they will not concentrate in class and, hence, are likely to end up learning nothing if forced back to school. And will pregnancy tests be necessary anymore?
Major (Rtd) Martin Wandahwa, Kakamega
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As the government machinery searches for students who have not reported back to school after the nine-month Covid-19 pandemic-induced break, the issue of pregnant and nursing girls has not been properly addressed.
While it is crucial that all students go back to school, will these traumatised girls integrate properly with their schoolmates?
Have they been counselled?
David M. Kigo, Nairobi
