An evaluation of the effectiveness of Zambian school re-entry policy on female educational attainment : a case of Mulwani secondary school in Livingstone district, Zambia.

Since 1997, the Zambian government has allowed girls who fall pregnant to take leave and go on maternity and then continue with their education after delivery. This shows that Zambia has a policy in place to carter for the continued education of girls returning to school after giving birth. Despite the policy being implemented, many young girls continue dropping out of school due to challenges encountered in their pursuit of education. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Re-entry policy of pupils at Mulwani Secondary School in Livingstone District of Southern Province of Zambia. Qualitative data was analysed thematically. That is similar ideas from respondents were put together into themes. Transcribed interviews were analysed through content analysis. The reason for content analysis was to interpret the meaning of transcribed text. This study used the qualitative exploratory research design using individual interviews. The sample size involved 10 teen mothers, 1 school head teacher, 2 deputy head teachers, 2 senior teachers, 2
guidance and counselling teachers, and 8 teachers teaching teen mothers at Mulwani Secondary School.All the participants were picked from the selected secondary school in Livingstone District using purposive sampling. The sample size depended on data saturation. This was because the concern in this qualitative study was not about how much data the researcher will gather or from how many sources, but whether the data collected will be sufficiently rich to bring out detailed information about the effectiveness of the Zambian school Re-entry policy on female educational attainment. Purposive sampling was used because the researcher wanted to collect data from participants who had the right information. Qualitative data was analysed through content analysis.
The findings of the study indicated that the Re-entry policy was not being effectively implemented in government schools from an educational management perspective. It was also found that pupils did not know much about the Re-entry policy. The majority of the learners indicated that they were not aware of the Re-entry policy and this showed that the school management did not adequately sensitize the pupils on the policy. This study recommended that it was necessary to include the Re entry policy in the school curriculum so that both learners and teachers could have adequate knowledge of it. Further, government through the MoGE should deal with the root cause of teenage pregnancy in schools. For further research, the study recommends that that a research be done on
the challenges of teachers who are teaching the teen mothers in government schools.