Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), including critically minded parents across the country, are criticising and condemning the politically pushed decision by the governing Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) for overturning the expulsion of pregnant girls to school.
As if it formed part of the SLPP second year achievement, government is so noisy about the unacceptable return of pregnant girls and teen mums to schools. An idea which is hardly acceptable even in most advanced democracies in the world, but the President Julius Maada Bio led failed ‘paopa’ government has done what pleases him and his followers, telling the world that his era is a period of every possibilities.
The return of unwanted learners to school is one of the progress records the SLPP and President Bio want to track on their scorecard as gains made in the last two years on bad governance, but with a focused nation, where in people are always fixed on emerging developmental issues, as it has always been in the days of his predecessor, former President Koroma, Sierra Leoneans, after the other, keep asking themselves what the future holds under the President BioSLPP administration?
A question government is yet to answer amidst a nationwide Corona virus lockdown, the anxious people of Sierra Leone who have been deprived of all social services seem to be patiently waiting for their answers until the trouble of the deadly virus is passed off.
With that being put into firm action by the government, President Bio on 30th March announced the return of teenage mothers and pregnant girls to schools, by way further justifying needs for more financial support for the already crippling free education, which they intend such beneficiaries must form part of with that in mind.
Moreover, the girls in questions somehow placed themselves under a self-ban from schools during the stay at home periods, while waiting for the containment and complete eradication of the deadly Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in 2014. While waiting most of them got pregnant and gave birth to babies during that period and unfortunately dropped out of schools all due to poor parenting. That was the exact situation rather that people, for want of political point scoring, continue to blame the then Ministry of Education authorities and the last All People’s Congress (APC) government.
The government took the move on disciplinary grounds that the ministry had wanted to separate school mothers from actual school pupils as they-pregnant and lactating learners- were no longer expected to be incorporated in normal school setting, which was why special educational needs were provided for them by the last administration.
Considering the negative impacts their very inclusion in normal school settings may likely have on their peers at large, government did everything it could to get pregnant school girls and teenage mothers fully supported along with lots of EVD orphans and survivors. But because the defaulters were somehow scared of confrontational stigmas, most of them skipped school sessions and their weak parenting backgrounds ended up blaming the APC government for the misfortunes of those unwanted learners.
Were those not enough efforts to have reformed those EVD affected pregnant school girls and teen mothers, from illiteracies and other social vulnerabilities? Of course they were all indeed in their own best interests but where politics is highly concerned and the ruling SLPP and President Bio are poised to be grabbing credits for anything they do or not, the whole efforts were turned against the last government as if they did nothing to address the plight of those needy school mothers and pregnant teens.
Moreover, by way of justifying further funding for government’s flagship free education policy, the authorities have tried hard against all social norms to form those girls as part of beneficiaries of President Bio’s free education as promised in his 2018 presidential elections campaign manifesto. So, the more reasons they have shamefully incorporated those societal ills high school dropouts into the normal learning settings.
So don’t be surprised and shocked to be seeing huge number of pregnant girls and teenage mothers in secondary schools across the country for they are going to be all over the place in almost every government and government-assisted schools. This is recorded as one of the major achievements of the SLPP Bio led hegemony.
On the one hand, the Bio led SLPP supervision is now worriedly positioning itself against the main opposition APC regime as if the self-expulsions of pregnant girls and teen mums from schools were orders from the line ministry and the then government, when in fact they expelled themselves from schools which then was considered that it would help in shaping others very well, prepare and guided them throughout their high school periods onto universities and thereafter.
So no need to be roaming around blaming the last APC government for the self-created predicaments of pregnant girls and teen mums who abandoned their schoolings to nurse their babies at home and eventually decided to become untimely mothers and wives.
They were actually reported to have got impregnated by their male peers while waiting for the reopening of schools when all social and economic activities were shutdown due to the massive deadly threats that were posed by the EVD outbreak, but most of the girls eventually go pregnant and dropped out of schools, marking the very end of their educational journeys.
For government, by then, it was all blamed on poor parenting while the opposition SLPP, in trying score political points from the issue, charged the authorities that government had deprived school children of their basic human rights to education. But critical and education pundits, on the other hand, said no serious minded parent would allow his/her child to be impregnated in school. They said it were even mere shame and disgrace for people who had spent all their resources from primary to secondary and only allow those children to drop out of schools because of pregnancies.
Yet, the SLPP government, in late March 2020 with little or no considerations for whatever impacts the situation of school mothers may cause on peers in their various learning environments, outrageously overturned the decision by pronouncing the reacceptance of pregnant girls in school nationwide, arguing that the move strongly supports their human rights pregnant girls to education, as they were discriminated against.
Government spokesmen, including those from the Office of the President and the Ministry of Education, after the other are arguing and trying to defend the issue and persuade the public on different media platforms, that it is part of their human capital development policy that is granting access to education to all. And criticisms against the move by government continue to be showered on education authorities including President Bio for their entire senselessness and sensitivity to have overturned such issue.
Founder and chief executive owner of a pro-government CSO Purposeful, Chernor Bah, described the lifting of the ban as a big ‘victory’ for over ‘18,000’ girls who were ‘discriminated’ by the senseless ban, adding that it is also a ‘victory’ for Sierra Leone and their ambition as well as feminists and to achieve education for all.
This continues to receive series of condemnations from across the country by CSOs that it does not send any good examples to the whole world to accept girls with pregnancies in school as it has the proclivity to largely influence others, and should be thus not encouraged in any formal school settings nowhere in the country.
As part of multiple voices damning government’s moves on the returning of mothers to schools, Kef Kargobai, a vocal CSO advocate, Thursday condemned the decision saying that it is not good for other children if not in the same learning environment but at larges as it actually portrays bad examples which can influence so many others.
He believes such is not possible anywhere in the world, not even in advanced democracies, where rights issues are always almost considered every steps of the way. Kargobai therefore suggested that other means of educational support should have been provided for them instead of reincorporating them in normal school setting, which is not permissive much as learning is concerned.
It could be recalled that, in December 2019, the Economic Community of West African States Court of Justice ruled that the teenage mothers and pregnant girls return to schools in Sierra Leone. The court also made recommendations with possible suggestions as to how teenage mothers and pregnant girls can be further accepted in schools.
But SaliueSantigie Sesay, aka Triple S., a carpenter in Freetown, said, ‘for me I consider this as a mere misuse of privileges and rights given to girls to acquire formal education and end up with pregnancies, which clearly means that there is no place for pregnant women in schools, so there is no way government can return such people to schools. It is not a good example for other innocent girls.’ He therefore suggests that the government should have provided another means of empowering girls of that nature rather than bringing them back to school.
Like Triple S., the views and opinions of the reacceptance of pregnant girls and teen mums to school are all the same, blaming the incumbent government for insensitively accepting the unacceptable thereby compromising the whole education standards just to secure the votes of those defaulter learners in normal school systems.