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Nirvana Pillay, Visiting Researcher Wits School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand

Pregnant learners in South Africa need creches and compassion to keep them in school

Pregnant schoolgirls weigh up several factors when deciding whether to stay in school throughout and after their pregnancies. Stephane De Sakutin/AFP via Getty Images

After Boitumelo gave birth she decided not to go back to school. She assumed that, because she was now a mother, she would be barred from returning. Then she had a surprising interaction:

They [school] were like, why did you not come back [to school], do you attend [school] elsewhere? I was like, no, I have a child. Then they were like, on January we need you here, this school is empty without you, and that gave me the confidence of saying, oh I must go back to school.

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