Church and state clash over pregnant girls in Congolese schools
The government has instructed schools to stop excluding pregnant girls.
Church leaders and the Congolese government clashed this week over whether pregnant girls should be allowed to continue their education in Catholic schools.
The education ministry of the Democratic Republic of the Congo issued a circular July 14 ordering the country’s schools to end the practice of excluding pregnant girls when the next academic year begins in September.
“There is no justification for excluding pregnant girls from the education system if they have not expressed a desire to leave school,” said the directive signed by Alexis Yoka La Pulinangu, the country’s acting secretary general for national education and new citizenship.
But the Catholic Church said its policy would be to ask pregnant girls to transfer to the state school system, on the grounds of discipline and morality.
In a July 16 letter addressed to Catholic school administrators, a Church official insisted the directive did not apply to the country’s more than 18,000 Catholic schools, which comprise roughly a quarter of the education system.
Catholic conventioned schools (écoles conventionnées) are overseen by the Church but supported by the state under the terms of a management agreement.
Fr. Emmanuel Bashiki, secretary of the episcopal commission for Christian education and national coordinator of Catholic conventioned schools, said in the letter that the management agreement took precedence over the new directive.
He noted that the management agreement “emphasizes the morality and discipline of the student in matters of conduct,” and said the directive could not apply to Catholic schools given the agreement’s provisions.
He argued that state officials were aware the directive did not concern Catholic schools because a copy was not sent to him in his capacity as national coordinator of Catholic conventioned schools.
Bashiki said that if a student became pregnant, she should transfer to a state-run school.
Msgr. Donatien Nshole, general secretary of the National Episcopal Conference of Congo, expressed support for Bashiki’s letter in a video shared on social media.
He said the Church’s policy was “really about enshrining discipline in schools.”
“One of the hallmarks of our schools is discipline in matters of morals, among other things,” he commented.
He added: “It’s not a question here of refusing, of rejecting students who are in this situation.”
The debate over pregnant girls in schools comes amid broader educational and social challenges in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
According to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics, 79% of Congolese girls completed their primary education in 2021, but only 51.4% had a full secondary education.
“Low educational attainment, especially for girls, is due in part to relatively high levels of child marriage and early childbearing,” UNESCO said.
The country, which borders Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, has suffered frequent armed conflicts since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960.
UN officials said in April that all parties engaged in fighting in the east of the country have systematically engaged in sexual violence against civilians.
Around half of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s more than 105 million-strong population is Catholic.
"The Catholic Church said its policy would be to ask pregnant girls to transfer to the state school system, on the grounds of discipline and morality."
What about the fathers of those babies? Are they excluded, too, on the grounds of discipline and morality?? Assuming they are of school age....
This just seems like a freebie for the "an unintentional pregnancy will ruin your life" prochoice movement.
Especially since it's not exactly uncommon for teen pregnancies in the DRC to arise from non consensual situations - this is an area with one of the highest rates of conflict related rape in the world; as well as extreme poverty that drives girls to older "boyfriends" for food/money/etc.