Pregnant Girls in Tanzania Can Now Go to School

A World Bank project involving a 500-million-dollar loan to Tanzania is providing thousands of young moms-to-be the opportunity to go to school, in an effort to offer secondary education to all Tanzanians without prejudice.

“The target is to reach more than 6.5 million secondary school students across the country, without discrimination and shall include girls who drop out of school for various reasons, including pregnancy,” reads a statement written this month by the country’s Ministry of Education. “The government is committed to ensure that they continue with their education as prescribed in the project.”

“It is the first time the government of Tanzania has publicly announced in an official state document that it will include pregnant girls in secondary school education,” says Judy Gitau, regional coordinator for Equality Now Africa, a rights group among those who called on the government to revoke the ban on expectant students.

The World Bank had previously frozen 1.7 billion dollars in loans to Tanzania – which has one of the world’s highest teen pregnancy rates – in 2018, after the nation’s ban on pregnant girls attending school, up until last September when it started releasing the funds again.