Cabinet approves new policy for pregnant schoolgirls

CABINET has signed off on a new policy that advocates for the mandatory re-integration of all school-aged mothers into the formal school system.

The policy takes effect this September.

Education Minister Ronald Thwaites last month tabled a Ministry Paper in the Lower House, indicating that the policy paper had been submitted to the Cabinet for approval. At the time, he said the measure would help Jamaica fulfil international policy and development aims contained in the Millennium Development Goals, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

The issue was raised in Parliament in February by Opposition Senator Kamina Johnson Smith when she sought to have the Education Act amended to change the regulations requiring automatic expulsion of pregnant girls from the public school system.

Senator Sandrea Falconer, the minister in charge of information, told yesterday's Jamaica House press briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister in Kingston that the approved policy will clear up existing misconceptions.

"The education regulations provide that a girl who becomes pregnant shall leave the formal school system during the period of her pregnancy. The minister of education has the discretion to facilitate the re-entry of such girls into educational institutions," said Falconer.

However, she said the converse existed.

"No policy framework existed for the exercise of this discretion. Instead, at times, schools have misinterpreted the provision and treated the girls as absent from the school permanently. The schools will now be advised and places temporarily vacated by a student during her pregnancy should be retained for the student's return to school following the completion of an approved transitional programme," Falconer told reporters.

She added that the policy would provide the same flexibility to students wishing to attend a different school after the birth of their child.

In the meantime, a preventative message, designed to reduce teenage births, will be a critical component of the policy while prevention messages will be integrated into the school-based and national adolescent sexual and reproductive health and family programmes which target potential teenaged fathers.