Stakeholders in the education sector spearheaded by members of the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC-E) on Education are advocating for the government of Ghana to consider adopting a material support policy for targeted vulnerable teenage mothers to help them to get back to school.
The MPs posit that the re-entry policy for pregnant girls and teenage mothers which has been under implementation by the Ghana Education Service (GES) since 2018 has recorded very low success so far.
According to them, despite scaling up the "Back to School" campaign in 2021, there is still a missing link being the absence of material support for the girls considering their poor background which is worsened by childbirth, childcare, and being in school without any form of financial support.
Speaking exclusively to GhanaWeb on the sidelines of a STAR Ghana facilitated a tripartite meeting between the PSC-E on Education and other stakeholders in Koforidua, some MPs and CSOs shared their views on the way forward.
A member of the Parliamentary Committee on Gender, Rita Naa Odoley Sowah, expressed worry that even though it takes two to tango, the girls end up dropping out of school while their male counterparts still continue schooling.
She held the view that teachers, parents of both boys and pregnant girls as well as other stakeholders in the society must make it a point to let the girl develop the interest in school again despite getting pregnant or after giving birth.
To the MP for Builsa South, Dr. Clement Abas Apaak who doubles as Deputy Ranking Member of the PSC-E, teenage pregnancy creates a condition that cripples the economic progress of Ghana.
He suggested that there should be stiffer punitive measures for the adult men who put the young girls in such "unfortunate" situations.
"To address this we must improve conditions to get the teenagers to abstain and protect themselves from becoming vulnerable.
"We must also hold unscrupulous adult men accountable. I think that building a sex offenders database can help," Dr. Apaak suggested.
Meanwhile, the Minister for Education in charge of TVET, Gifty Twum-Ampofo, explained that a lot of education has gone into educating the public to reduce stigmatisation against pregnant girls.
"We have encouraged the girls that they should be in school even if they are pregnant and not weak. And when they give birth, we expect a grandmother or a well-wisher to take care of the babies for the teenage mothers to go back to school.
"But the poverty level with some of them is so high that all of us must deliberate on how well we could get a system to identify very needy girls and get some package to support the (babysitters) while the girls have a sane mind to study in school," the Deputy Education Minister appealed.
Statistics show that, aside from the surging number of teenage pregnancies in Ghana, a high number of teenage mothers do not go back to school after giving birth mainly due to poverty and fear of stigmatisation.
According to a recent report by the Africa Education Watch, 1 out of 3 girls is unable to return to school due to teenage pregnancy and migration.
"The Re-entry policy mainly focuses on psychosocial support and awareness creation. So, yes, we can get some girls in school but keeping them in school becomes a problem.
"So, we are advocating for material or financial support to be part of the LEAP where vulnerable girls are identified and given a monthly stipend to help cater for themselves, their babies and buy school supplies," Sahadatu Ali, a Research Associate at Africa Education Watch and a participant at the Tripartite meeting, said.
