By Nyasha Dube, Zvishavane
Farming Community Educational Trust (FACET) says pregnant young girls in farming and mining communities have been struggling to return to school due to societal discrimination and stigmatization, despite the new policy by government which allows expecting students to attend classes.
The organization is working on the Girls Education Advocating in the Region (GEAR) for equitable education systems under the Education Out Loud project.
In an interview, Remember Tsvanhu said the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown increased young girls’ lack of access to equal and equitable education.
“Young girls in farming communities found themselves engaging in prostitution and other promiscuous activities so as to make ends meet. They were neither going to school nor working in fields as they were used to. As a result most of them fell pregnant and it has not been easy for them to recover from that setback,” Tsvanhu said.
She added that it will take long to close the gender educational gap that came as a result of teen pregnancies, child marriages and school dropouts which happened during lockdown.
“There is a policy gap when it comes to young mothers’ re-entry into school. It’s there in the educational frameworks but not as a stand-alone policy so you will find that the society has not warmed up to the idea of young mothers going back to school and even the school authorities are not very welcoming. The girls themselves are not confident enough to go back to school,” she said.
In 2020, the Government of Zimbabwe amended the Education Act allowing pregnant girls to attend school, thereby promoting the educational rights of the girl child.
Acoording to UNFPA, adolescent girls in rural areas (27,2%) begin child bearing at an early stage compared to those in urban areas (10,3%). These statistics are also attributed to poverty.
UNICEF classifies education as the right of every child, girls or boys, stating that in every country learning must be quality and inclusive so as to feed in to Sustainable Development Goal 4 on Quality Education which seeks “To ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.
Tsvanhu also says there’s need for advocacy to close the gap which hinders children in mining and farming communities from accessing quality and equitable education.
“We need to engage the responsible authorities and duty bearers because the pandemic caused a lot of setbacks. Most children had no access to online education during lockdown and most parents lost their sources of income. However from our observations the girl child was the most affected and it is going to take long t close that gap,” Tsvanhu said.