New government education S.I. to turn schools into prenatal caring centres-PTUZ

Editor

Following government’s move to gazette new education regulations under Statutory Instrument (S.I.) 13 of 2025, the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) has labelled the S.I., ‘a threat’ to payment of school fees in schools and will turn schools into ‘prenatal care centres’.
Under the S.I., promulgated by government, yesterday:
“No child shall be barred from school for failing to pay fees or not having a birth certificate, schools to provide psychosocial support to pupils that fall pregnant.
Pregnant pupils to be allowed to stay in school and finish their studies. Pupils are barred from entering staff living quarters.”
In an interview with The Blast,PTUZ president, Takavafira Zhou, said:

“This is madness of the worst order. It would have been better if the government had enunciated free education with government commitment to fund this as is the case with other Southern African countries like Zambia. The new education regulations are a threat to payment of fees and acquisition of resources in schools, more so given the absence of equalisation funds in schools at this critical juncture.”
He added:
“It is puzzling that schools that ordinarily must encourage good behaviour are now expected to provide psychological support to pupils that fall pregnant without any training to the nature of the psychological support.
There virtually no balance of scale. If a child engages in sex it’s grounds for them to be excluded from a school, but if they get pregnant as a result of that sex, we give them psycho-social support and ask them to remain in school? “Does the govt provide material support to pregnant students?
The new regulations have a challenge of turning schools into prenatal caring centres than institutions of learning.
“A better option was building special schools for pregnant pupils and male counterparts where better psychological services could be offered to prepare these into adulthood. The prescription may aggravate the disease in schools. It is clear that the Ministry is more driven by donor funds and idealism than pragmatism, realism and consensus from the Zimbabwean populace,”he added.