Pregnancy

Since the establishment of St Boniface College in 1995, the school has not recorded any teenage pregnancies, despite the Kavango East Region recording hundreds of pregnancies amongst young girls every year.This according to principal Roseline Sebastian and long-serving teacher, John Tanoya, who said teenage pregnancy remains alien to the school.“I have been at the school since 2010 and when I arrived I was informed that the school did not record any teenage pregnancy prior to me joining. Between then and now, I can also attest that no girl child of ours has fallen victim to teenage pregnancy,” Tanoya remarked.“I have not seen a pregnant learner at the school before. It&#039;s just taboo. It&#039;s not to say that we will chase the learner away, but for us, our learners are well trained to abstain from sexual activities.”St Boniface is a boarding school some 30 kilometres east of Rundu, and is ranked as one of the best performing schools in the country.In 2020, Kavango East recorded over 550 teenage pregnancies. with most of the cases attributed to the poverty stricken households learners come from, which make them fall victim to adult men who take advantage of them.No huggingWhen asked what strategy the school uses to ensure that teenage pregnancy does not take place at the school, Tanoya said the school discourages hugging and touching between male and female learners.“I remember very well how the former school principal, Mary Phillis Yesudasan, would say that when learners start hugging, the next thing to follow is kissing and after kissing, sex happens. That’s why we discourage learners from the opposite sex getting into such positions,” he said.The teacher added that the school having a hostel is another reason why learners do not get sexually involved.“There is no time for them to concentrate on those things. We always keep them busy and that is why we can proudly say that we don’t record pregnancies here,” he said.&#039;Not what we stand for&#039;Asked whether learners are allowed to socialise, Sebastian said classes consist of both male and female learners, learners engage during break or during their off times at the hostel; however, constant monitoring of their actions takes place.“We make sure we keep them busy at all times and through that, you can monitor them as well,” she said.There is a perception that once St Boniface learners matriculate and proceed to varsity, they end up failing because they start engaging in social activities.To this, Tanoya said: “We hear that a lot about our children falling victim to social evils because when they were at school it looked as if they were in confined area and their rights were limited. The question is - are people expecting us to give them a bed and teach them those things?"That’s not what we stand for, we are here to provide education and we are doing so," he said.“Our children do go for out weekends and holidays but we do not experience pregnancies and this is because the learners know why they are at school.”kenya@namibiansun.com

Pregnancy

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-04

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Pregnancy

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-04

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