Sanitation and access to hygiene products, teen pregnancies and sexual assault are but a few of the barriers to education for girl learners, researchers at the Legal Resources Centre said as it focused on the challenges that girl learners face in South Africa.

As part of Human Rights Month, the centre has shone the spotlight on the difficulties that girl learners face, both in the school environment and in accessing education. The discussion shows that the obstacles girl learners face are multifaceted and that, although some progress has been made, the implementation of existing plans to alleviate this has been insufficient thus far.

Researchers Amy-Leigh Payne, Charlene Kreuser, and Muyega Mugerwa-Sekwabe found that there have been important developments in addressing the barriers to education for girl learners in South Africa.

The Girls’ Education Movement has, for example, worked at a grassroots level to promote equal access to education for girls, enhancing the quality of education in rural areas, building safer schools, reducing violence against girls, and providing gender-responsive school material.

But, the researchers said that, despite contributions from public interest organisations and increasing promises and interventions from the department of basic education, girls still face significant barriers in access to education.

Poverty is one of the most important factors for determining whether a girl can access and complete her education, they said. Poor households lack resources to pay for schooling and associated costs.

“These households with multiple children may choose to invest in boys’ education rather than that of girls while also relying on girls to help with household chores and care for younger siblings and other family members.”

The researchers added that studies consistently show that girls who face multiple disadvantages — such as low family income and living in remote or underserved locations — are farthest behind in terms of access to and completion of education.

Teen pregnancies are also a major barrier for some girls to complete their education, and it is important to adopt a national policy on how schools handle learner pregnancies, they said.

At the national level, South Africa recorded the highest number of teenage pregnancies in the past four years. Of particular concern, the researchers said, is that an increasing number of girls between the ages of 10 and 14 are falling pregnant.

The high rate of learner pregnancy and subsequent dropout show that learners are not provided with Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) and that they are not given the necessary support to return to school and complete their education after giving birth, the researchers said.

In addressing sexual assault, the researchers said that beyond putting the necessary legislative mechanisms in place to both prevent and address sexual misconduct towards girl learners, the school curriculum also has a role to play in terms of educating students on the matter.

In this regard, CSE becomes important for teaching learners — in an age-appropriate and incremental manner — about their bodies, consent, navigating and challenging gender norms, and what constitutes sexual assault.

Currently, CSE is only being implemented in a few schools across South Africa. It is necessary that it be expanded to all schools to ensure that learners have access to accurate information about consent and sexual misconduct.

Such interventions need to be implemented urgently as sexual assault is a major barrier to education for girl learners, the researchers found.

In regard to sanitation and access to hygiene products, the researchers said there is a connection between a lack of access to female hygiene products, adequate water, and sanitation facilities at school, and school attendance.