Educational support for pregnant and parenting schoolgirls in rural South African school settings

Rifumuni Nancy Mathebula, Tawanda Runhare
University of Venda, South Africa
Thinavhudzulo Norman Mafumo
University of Limpopo, South Africa

Teenage pregnancy and motherhood are among the major causes of gender inequality in education in the contemporary global community. This study sought to examine the effectiveness of interventions in redressing the negative effects of schoolgirl pregnancy on teaching and learning at four high schools that experienced high rates of schoolgirl pregnancy in a rural setting in Limpopo Province, South Africa. A case study design and qualitative research methods were used to collect and process data. Purposive sampling was employed to select 20 members of the school governing body (SGB), 4 school management team (SMT) members, 8 pregnant-monitoring teachers, 8 class teachers and 8 schoolgirls who were either pregnant or parenting at the time of data collection. The main findings of the study were that pregnancy-monitoring teachers played roles that were beneficial to pregnant and parenting girls, there was a non-alignment between national policy and school guidelines on pregnant and parenting girls, and the four schools differed in the way they implemented national policy concerning schoolgirl pregnancy.
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Authors: Rifumuni Nancy Mathebula holds a doctoral degree in education. She was a postdoctoral fellow at University of Venda, South Africa and is now a lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Her research interests are gender issues in education. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0780-563X Email: mathebular@cput.ac.za Tawanda Runhare holds a PhD in education and is an associate professor in sociology of education. He is the acting dean of School of Education at the University of Venda, South Africa. His research interests are on inequalities in educational access and outcomes. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6142-7858 Email: Tawanda.Runhare@univen.ac.za Thinavhudzulo Norman Mafumo holds a PhD in education policy studies and is an associate professor at the University of Limpopo, South Africa. His area of specialisations are social justice in education, education policy and education management. Email: Thinavhundzulo.mafumo@ul.ac.za Please cite as: Mathebula, R. N., Runhare, T. & Mafumo, T. N. (2022). Educational support for pregnant and parenting schoolgirls in rural South African school settings. Issues in Educational Research, 32(2), 593-612. http://www.iier.org.au/iier32/mathebula.pdf