Dear Editor,

I am more than a little curious about a JIS report carried this week by several online news sources stating “Education Minister Ronald Thwaites says the Ministry stands ready to assist teenage girls, forced to drop out of high school due to pregnancy, to complete their secondary education after giving birth. He also implores principals and other secondary school administrators to assist in re-admitting the girls into the education system, citing that this is “mandatory”.

Section 31 of the Regulations under the Education Act gives the Minister discretion as to whether a girl excluded from school by reason of pregnancy may be re-admitted to that school or any other.

Regulations under the Education Act are subject to negative resolution of Parliament, so they couldn’t have changed without public knowledge. I moved a motion in the Senate in February asking that this law be changed to make re-admission mandatory, but this is the first time I am hearing any position being taken by the Minister on this issue and, to the best of my knowledge, it hasn’t come up in the House.

I’m therefore not clear on the message Minister Thwaites intended to send in his address to the principals and teachers. If the law hasn’t changed, then it is not mandatory that they take the girls back into schools – so why would he say it is? Indeed, if it were mandatory, then why would he have to implore the principals to take the girls back? Furthermore, what is this assistance which the Ministry now stands ready to deliver, and what is the framework for same?

As previously explained, changing the law to make re-admission mandatory would correct an institutional wrong that embeds inter-generational poverty in our society, and prevents many girls and their children from fulfilling their potential.

It would also correct what I believe to be a breach of the fundamental Constitutional protection from discrimination on the basis of gender as enshrined in Chapter 13 of Jamaica’s Constitution, known as the Charter of Rights.

Not least of all, changing the law would remove the power of personal discretion from the picture and legitimise the necessary efforts of those well-thinking teachers, principals, guidance counsellors and officers of the Women’s Centre Foundation of Jamaica, who make every effort to get youthful mothers back into schools. These women — trailblazers and daily bastions of girl empowerment — have long recognised the negative impact of exclusion on the girl, the child and society at large, so where they can, they work around the rules. So rules are again observed in the breach, and accepted as the way in which things must be done. Unfortunately, however, not only do we thus justify rule-breaking for the end-result, but we leave many girls out. What about the girls who don’t have someone “imploring” on their behalf?

This is in part what concerns me about this media report. Is the Honourable Minister saying that all principals should now do what a few have been doing already, save that they should now call the Ministry?

I think the matter is sufficiently important for the Minister to be more definitive. The words sound right, but there seems to be a gap between the public discourse on changing the law to make re-admission mandatory, and this speech picked up by the media. I am hopeful that this is a precursor to an announcement of an intention to amend the Regulations under the Education Act, and a clearly articulated policy to support re-integration.

Hopefully, the Minister is also working with the Prime Minister to ensure that resources are provided to the Women’s Centre so that they can expand the number of girls they are able to reach to prevent repeat pregnancies. If he changes the law and relevant policy, it will be a less arduous task for the Centre to get girls back into the formal system and allow them to better focus their energies. A better-resourced Women’s Centre could possibly even provide expanded day care facilities as part of a supporting infrastructure for a change in the law.

I couldn’t close without repeating that more care certainly needs to be placed on ensuring high quality, realistic and youth-friendly delivery of Health and Family Life Education (HFLE) in schools. Principals must be made to understand the importance of ensuring that the curriculum is not only delivered in their schools, but that they have the right teachers delivering the right content. Teachers must be sufficiently comfortable to encourage questions and answer them. This is really the heart of the matter – an ounce of prevention of course, beats all of this discourse any day, so the Ministry will have to be realistic about its approach to HFLE and youth-friendly support services if it is to work as intended. If it does, then the situation will eventually become less dire, as fewer girls will get pregnant before they finish school.

Honourable Minister, we would be grateful for some clarity on this important social issue, and look forward to your clear policy statement.

Kamina Johnson-Smith

JLP Senator and Attorney

kejohnsonsmith@gmail.com