Toolkit launch event: Supporting pregnant and mother learners in South Africa
The Khanyisa Ngemfundo Research Team from the Universities of Cape Town, Oxford, and Oxford Research South Africa, in collaboration with the Department of Education, launched a training toolkit for educators designed to support pregnant and mother learners to stay, return, and finish their schooling.
The event began with a presentation by Mrs. Pumla Gxuluwe, Director of School Health, Safety & Learner Enrichment at the Eastern Cape Department of Education, who stressed the serious challenge of early and unintended pregnancies, with 17,069 deliveries in 2022/23 among 15-19-year-olds in the Eastern Cape alone. The evidence-based toolkit developed by the Khanyisa Ngemfundo team, led by Dr. Jane Kelly, will go a long way in helping these learners by empowering educators with the skills to create a supportive, inclusive, and nurturing school environment.
Informed by mixed methods research with adolescent mothers, educators, and programme implementers, and aligned with the Department of Education’s Policy on Learner Pregnancy, the toolkit provides educators with necessary information on learner pregnancy, opportunities for self-reflection, and skills to generate solutions for their own unique context.
To read the toolkit here.
For a news clip of the event, see here.
Thank you to all the stakeholders, researchers, and partners who made this toolkit possible.