An Education Department report on teen parenthood has received much attention, but the research ignores important factors, says Nkosikhulule Nyembezi.
Durban - Most people care about education and childbearing because both affect the wellbeing and prospects of women.
Economists, policymakers and politicians care because education and childbearing shape economic development and population growth, and these are key focus areas in South Africa’s Vision 2030 National Development Plan.
This explains the widespread public interest in the recently released statistics on teenage pregnancy for the years 2010 to last year in the Department of Basic Education’s report titled “Teenage Pregnancy in South Africa with a Specific Focus on Schoolgoing Learners”.
While welcoming the significant progress that South Africa has made since 1994 towards achieving gender parity in basic education, to the extent that girls now make up the majority of enrolments in secondary schools, the report rings alarm bells about the high numbers of teenage girls whose chances of becoming educated and independent adults are disrupted by unplanned and unwanted pregnancies.
It confirmed that pupil pregnancies were more concentrated in schools in poorer neighbourhoods in the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal, thereby necessitating sustained targeted interventions in these areas.
Most South Africans should care about what this report tells us about education and childbearing mainly for four reasons.
First, there is general consensus that in a rights-based society, young girls who fall pregnant should not be denied access to education and this is entrenched in the law through the constitution and the Schools Act of 1996.
In 2007, the Department of Education released Measures for the Prevention and Management of Learner Pregnancy. Not without controversy, the guidelines continue to advocate for the right of pregnant girls to remain in school, but suggest up to a two-year waiting period before girls can return to school in the interests of the rights of the child.
The extent to which these measures have improved the situation is reflected in this report.
Second, because of the underlying belief that the transition to parenthood is a major event in the lifespan of an individual, this takes on special significance when it precedes the transition to education, work, citizenship and marriage that offer the skills, resources and social stock necessary to succeed as parents.
As stated in the report, although alternative pathways to parenthood occur and are tolerated to some extent, institutional support for parenthood is still geared towards a traditional sequencing of transitions. Our collective translation of this underlying belief into effective policy response is constantly challenged by the findings of this report.
Third, because the country is preparing for an introduction of a comprehensive social security to include extension of social grants to pupils beyond the age of 18 years as part of efforts to ensure that, among other things, girls progress from secondary schooling to attain tertiary education.
The report indirectly reinforces calls for the government to make good of election promises to expand the social security net.
Fourth, the introduction of Implanon, the subdermal contraceptive device, about the size of a match, heralded by the government as “the biggest family planning programme South Africa has ever seen”.
This development has increased the choice of contraceptives already available to women including condoms, intrauterine contraceptive devices (devices inserted via the vagina into the uterus), oral and injectable contraceptives. As such, an uptake of available choices of contraceptives is likely to reduce teenage pregnancies in years to come.
This brings me to my point on some blind spots in this report.
Unobserved factors like health, family values and peer pressure can influence both educational choice and childbearing.
Analysing “what affects what” is a difficult task, even with detailed register-based data, which the authors of the report had access to.
As I see it, the main issue is that these unobserved factors are not sufficiently emphasised in the findings, yet they are essential ingredients of effective policy interventions that should result in overall behaviour modification regarding positive attitude towards sexual and reproductive health.
Indeed, one of the biggest unobserved factors in all this may be the effect of peers on childbearing and education. For instance, if a teenager is around other teenagers having children, she might be more inclined to have children herself.
As a result, my advice would be that access to culturally appropriate life skills education early in life should be expanded and boldly encouraged.
Teenagers can continue to benefit from life skills education that encourages them to be assertive in situations in which they find themselves vulnerable.
If only all women had the resources and health to pursue every educational opportunity they desired, and to decide at what age to bear children, if they wanted to.
In reality, few women have the luxury to make decisions about when to have a child or whether to pursue their education without taking other factors into account, facing conflicts and making trade-offs.
Also, given that adults have a greater responsibility to protecting children, it is vital that culturally appropriate interventions targeting adults should also be expanded and boldly encouraged.
This is even more urgent in the case of South Africa where, according to this report, HIV/Aids is now recognised as the primary reproductive health concern for adolescents, overtaking the long-standing emphasis on adolescent fertility.
Even though teenage fertility has been the subject of substantial debate in the social science research and policy circles, concern has not emanated from the increased risk that pregnancy confers to HIV.
This is where it can no longer be business as usual in the way in which we should engage with this report. Any proposed shift in policy and practice needs to be informed by a well-rounded understanding of the context of teenage pregnancy.
* Nkosikhulule Nyembezi is a researcher, policy analyst and human rights activist.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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