Parents taught a lesson

Siphumelele Secondary in Mpumalanga is demanding that pregnant pupils come to school with an adult in tow "because teachers are not midwives".

Parents like 62-year-old Catherine Mashabane are being taught a harsh lesson by the school in a bid to curb the problem of gymslip mothers in the region.

On Wednesday Mashabane sat for three hours in the deputy principal's office while her future daughter-in-law , Thando Ngomane, a matriculant, wrote the accounting paper.

Mashabane, a small-scale subsistence farmer, said she would have preferred spending the time ploughing the fields in preparation for planting nuts and mealies.

Her son, Dumisani, a firefighter, is the father of the 19-year-old Ngomane's unborn child.

According to the school's controversial policy, pupils are allowed to attend class until they are six months pregnant. Thereafter, they have to be accompanied by an adult to school.

If no adult can accompany them, the pupils are barred from school.

Both Mashabane and another mother, Sibongile Mathabela, who has had to accompany her pregnant 17-year-old daughter to school, said they felt embarrassed about doing this.

"Some parents judge us as failures while others are sympathetic because they know we are good mothers," said Mathabela whose grade 11 daughter, Lovemore Sengwayo, came back to school to write the English paper a day after giving birth.

But both said they believed the school's policy was a wake-up call to other parents.

Ngomane, who is seven months pregnant, also said she supported the policy because their escorts could assist if they suddenly went into labour.

She conceded, however, that it was often difficult for parents to sit at school for the whole day .

Siphumelele Secondary's radical policy is a desperate attempt to curb the growing problem of schoolgirl pregnancies.

And although its policy contravenes legislation, which states that schools cannot prevent pregnant pupils from attending class, many pupils and parents who live in the dusty hamlet of Mashushu, outside Hazyview, appear to be supporting it.

The school, which recorded 11 pregnancies this year, said its teachers were not trained to deal with pregnant pupils because staff were not "midwives".

In the absence of a clear national policy spelling out exactly how schools should manage pregnancies, many governing bodies are running the risk of falling foul of the law by implementing their own policies.

Earlier this month, the Free State Education Department forced Harmony High School in Virginia to readmit a pupil who was told that she could only return to class next year - although she had already given birth. The school argued that it had been following former education minister Naledi Pandor's national guidelines, drawn up in 2007, which suggested that young mothers remain at home for up to two years after giving birth. The school has been compelled to readmit the girl, but will fight this legal battle in the High Court in Bloemfontein early next year.

Harmony High had brought an urgent application asking the court to declare that the department did not have the authority to prevent the school from enforcing a pregnancy policy endorsed by parents.

For now, parents of pregnant children at Siphumelele Secondary are walking up to 3km to school.

Another young mother, 20-year-old Cynthia Mathebula, who gave birth last Thursday, said: "I think it will reduce the number of girls falling pregnant because they would be ashamed of making their parents accompany them to school."

The school's head of department for life sciences, Timothy Mbuyane, said forcing parents to accompany their pregnant children was a way of teaching them a lesson "to look after their children".

He insisted that the school was not breaking the law, saying: "Learners are encouraged to ask any elder to accompany them, not necessarily only their parents."

Siphumelele Secondary's principal, Andrew Mokoena, said it was obligatory for pregnant pupils to inform the school when they were six months' pregnant. "We can deal with minor things but with regard to delivery we don't have any professional expertise."

He said since introducing this system, all pregnant pupils have had adults accompany them.

"In most cases they don't come with their parents. The boy's family generally takes responsibility," Moekoena said.

Granville Whittle, spokesman for the Department of Basic Education, said the department's policy was to ensure that, as far as possible, pupils are allowed to remain in schools during pregnancy.

"No specific period of time is currently set aside for an absence of leave."

But he said that schools were not equipped to provide health care support to pregnant pupils, adding: "Learners who give birth will need some time after the birth to take care of the health needs of the child but must be allowed back in school as soon as they are ready to return."