‘A positive approach to sex’: Zero Dropout Campaign director weighs in on teenage pregnancy

News24 reported that the Gauteng province recorded a total of 23 226 teenage pregnancies in the year between March 2020 and April 2021.

Many of these teenagers were still at school and ended up dropping out as a result of the pregnancy and lack of support. 

With this in mind, Parent24 chatted to Merle Mansfield, programme director of the Zero Dropout Campaign, about what could be done to deal with this problem. Mansfield has worked in the civil society space for over a decade, and her focus is mainly on education and philanthropy.

She told us: “Teenage moms are less likely to return to school when their immediate environments do not offer support for them to manage both the responsibility of being a parent and that of being a learner.”

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