Almost everywhere, girls who get pregnant in school are allowed to finish their education. Only five countries still have explicit bans or restrictions: Afghanistan, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Kuwait, and Senegal. Now, a quarter of schools in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) need to be added to the list.
This summer the director of Catholic schools in the DRC wrote to the government that “Pregnant students cannot be kept in Catholic Agreement Schools, given the guarantee of morality and discipline that must characterize our schools,” as reported by UNESCO.
Nearly a million girls attend these schools. Catholic schools have grown rapidly in sub-Saharan Africa in recent years, and now account for more than half of all Catholic schools globally. This likely comes with some benefits; there is some evidence that Catholic schools in the US are higher quality than other schools. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo there are 5,000 Catholic high schools—roughly 1 in 4 schools. But excluding girls who get pregnant is clearly a major barrier to those girls completing their schooling.
How concerned should church leaders really be about “morality and discipline”? Research by Evans and Mendez Acosta shows that when other African countries lifted bans on pregnant girls in school, teen pregnancy rates didn’t rise. The research from high-income countries is mixed, but one of the highest quality studies shows that having a close friend fall pregnant makes teens less likely to get pregnant, potentially because they learn how difficult being pregnant is.
In the DRC, the fertility rate for 15-19 year olds is 91 per 1,000 (per the 2023-24 Demographic & Health Survey). So the ban on pregnant girls attending Catholic schools could affect tens of thousands of girls. Some might transfer to other schools, but many won’t. Dropping out of school can lead to lifelong consequences: worse employment, earnings, and wellbeing, and intergenerational effects on not just the mother but also the unborn child, who may have worse health and education outcomes.
The ban is also clearly discriminatory given the lack of a reciprocal ban on male teenage fathers. And the “morality and discipline” argument ignores the many cases where adolescent pregnancies are the result of forced sex.
Globally, the trend in policies is clear. A 2022 UNESCO review identified eight countries that still had restrictions on pregnant girls attending school: four of them Cameroon, Tanzania, São Tomé & Príncipe, and Togo, have since overturned the restrictions.
The Vatican is pro-life and argues that “Motherhood is not a liability but a gift to women.” The Catholic church in the DRC and the Vatican have an opportunity to demonstrate genuine moral leadership on this issue, by allowing girls to continue their education, even after a pregnancy.
