Teenage Pregnancy And Educational Progression Of The Girl Child: A Study Of The Tamale Metropolis, Ghana.

ABSTRACT 

Teenage pregnancy has always been a major setback to the overall development of the girl child in every single community of the Ghanaian society. This study looked at how teenage pregnancy is hindering the educational progression of the girl child in selected communities of the Tamale metropolis of Ghana. The study employed mixed methods – qualitative and quantitative techniques in addressing the research questions. The major data collection instruments that were utilized included: questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and focus group discussion. The study results indicate that over 80% of teenage girls who became pregnant completely dropped out of school. The situation is largely blamed on poor parenting, peer influence and ignorance because of poor sex education. It is concluded that the high level of teenage pregnancy is certainly not a healthy development in the country which is striving very hard to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly goal four which targets at achieving quality education and goal five which aims at ensuring gender equality in all sectors of the society. It is thus, recommended that government and stakeholders should focus on improving parenting, and expanding the peer educators concept across communities. There is also the need to incorporate sex education in the educational curriculum right from the basic level. Specifically, the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Protection should endeavor to establish a tracking system to enable continuous monitoring of the progress of the education of girls and help reinstate those who might withdraw from school for any reason. Establishment of effective counselling units in every basic school or cluster of schools across the country to provide counseling services on reproductive health, rights and responsibilities. School authorities need to champion the process in upholding the right of the pregnant school going girl to return to school after the pregnancy and without any restrictions.