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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Education Ministry concerned as More schoolgirls getting pregnant

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20140204

An es­ti­mat­ed 1,000 teenagers a year would have had four preg­nan­cies be­fore the age of 19, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh re­vealed dur­ing yes­ter­day's sit­ting of the Sen­ate.He was re­spond­ing to a ques­tion on the or­der pa­per from In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Vic­tor Wheel­er.

Gopeesingh lat­er told re­porters many of the teenage moth­ers had said they felt they were not loved and got preg­nant be­cause they want­ed some­thing to hold on to. Gopeesingh said the sit­u­a­tion was very fright­en­ing, and many of to­day's teenage moth­ers were chil­dren of teenage moth­ers.Ear­li­er, he told leg­is­la­tors his in­for­ma­tion was based on re­search done by the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

Wheel­er want­ed to know how many pri­ma­ry school­girls gave birth in the years from 2008 to 2012 and how many at both the pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school lev­els re­turned to school af­ter giv­ing birth. Wheel­er al­so want­ed to know how many of them were able to com­plete their ed­u­ca­tion up to Form Five.Gopeesingh said there were four of­fi­cial cas­es of pri­ma­ry school stu­dents giv­ing births dur­ing the spec­i­fied four-year pe­ri­od: one in 2008, two in 2010 and one in 2012.

He told leg­is­la­tors that all four girls who gave birth re­turned to school and com­plet­ed their pri­ma­ry school ed­u­ca­tion and moved in­to sec­ondary schools. Three of the four com­plet­ed ed­u­ca­tion up to Form Five, but the girl who gave birth in 2012 did not com­plete her sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion.Dur­ing the four-year pe­ri­od, his min­istry re­ceived 153 re­port­ed cas­es of teenage preg­nan­cy in girls rang­ing from 13 to 18 years.

Gopeesingh said 81 girls re­turned to school and 54 com­plet­ed ed­u­ca­tion up to Form Five.He gave a break­down in the fol­low­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al dis­tricts:

�2 Vic­to­ria ed­u­ca­tion­al dis­trict re­port­ed–15

�2 Port-of-Spain and en­vi­rons–52

�2 St George East–26

�2 Ca­roni–44

�2 North East­ern–4

�2 South East­ern–3

�2 St Patrick 9

Gopeesingh said the Gov­ern­ment had re­formed the cur­ricu­lum in pri­ma­ry schools to in­clude morals, val­ues, ethics, cit­i­zen re­de­vel­op­ment, char­ac­ter de­vel­op­ment, phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion, vi­su­al and per­form­ing arts and health and fam­i­ly life ed­u­ca­tion.The min­is­ter al­so said sex ed­u­ca­tion was taught un­der so­cial stud­ies in sec­ondary schools.

He said there were very strong stu­dent sup­port ser­vices in his min­istry, adding that Cab­i­net had re­cent­ly ap­proved a note for the ex­pan­sion of that de­part­ment. He said there were hun­dreds of guid­ance coun­sel­lors, of­fi­cers and so­cial work­ers in the sys­tem.

The min­is­ter said the min­istry was us­ing a mul­ti-pronged ap­proach to deal­ing with school vi­o­lence and in­dis­ci­pline, adding that the en­gage­ment of the se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices on the de­ter­mi­na­tion of statu­to­ry rape was a step in the right di­rec­tion. He said if peo­ple were ap­pre­hend­ed for statu­to­ry rape, there would be a drop in the teenage preg­nan­cy rate.No stu­dent would be de­nied her ed­u­ca­tion be­cause she got preg­nant, he said.

The min­is­ter, who has been a gy­nae­col­o­gist for 26 years, said in an­te­na­tal clin­ics at Mt Hope Women's Hos­pi­tal two-thirds of the new pa­tients seen were teenage preg­nan­cies.


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