MORE pupils are going on maternity leave with the latest being 12 at Mitenge community school in Mwekera in Ndola.
Five other pupils at the school have been married off by their parents.
This comes barely a week after the Sunday Mail revealed that 19 pupils at Hillside Girls Secondary School in Eastern Province will be going on maternity leave.
It also comes a few weeks after another revelation that 30 pupils at Kaoma Secondary School in Western Province left school in the first term of this year because they are in the family way.
Mitenge Community School coordinator Innocent Kampompole said the five girls are not pregnant but their parents have willingly married them off.
Mr Kampompole said the girls, aged between 14 and 18, were in grades five, six and seven.
He said in an interview that these statistics are as of May this year, adding that girls at his school get pregnant as early as grade five forcing their parents to marry them off at a tender age.
“We have been operating our community school since 2007. It runs from grade one to seven but what is shocking is that pupils start getting pregnant as early as grade five,” Mr Kampompole said.
He bemoaned the high levels of teenage pregnancy and early marriages which he attributed to the lack of a secondary school in the area.
He said girls who manage to go to secondary schools at Chifubu, Kansenshi and other schools are ejected and sent back to the community school when they fall pregnant.
“When they go to secondary schools, they live in boarding houses because the schools are far. There is no adult supervision in the boarding houses hence the girls are free to do anything they want,” he said.
Mr Kampompole appealed to Government to consider constructing a secondary school in the area to increase literacy levels and encourage the young girls to remain in school.
And Mr Kampompole commended Government’s intension to relocate Mwekera forest reserve residents to Maposa area.
He said Government’s decision to relocate the illegal settlers to Maposa area will enable them own land.
Mr Kampompole said Government has assured the settlers of three hectares of land each in Maposa where they can build permanent structures.
“As a community school we are excited about Government’s intensions to relocate us because that way we can expand and build permanent structures. This will make it possible for donors to fund our expansion project because we will have our own land on title,” Mr Kampompole said.
He said he is dismayed by the behaviour of some unscrupulous people inciting settlers in Mwekera forest reserve to defy a Government order to relocate.
“Mwekera reserve residents need to understand that they have settled on illegal land. No one should talk them into defying Government’s relocation order because they will never have land ownership if they fall for those lies,” he said.