Pregnancy and contraception

Well over 90% of learners rejected the notion that a schoolboy should feel proud of making a girl pregnant. This was particularly the case at Sapler schools, where 94% rejected it.

Similarly, well over 90% of learners rejected schoolgirl pregnancy.

A markedly smaller proportion (75-82%) of learners who are sexually active indicated that they / their partners wanted to prevent pregnancy.

However, very few indicated that they started having sex because they actually wanted to become pregnant.

It is therefore perhaps not surprising that between 12 and 18% of sexually active learners report having been pregnant or having made somebody else pregnant.

The larger proportion of reported pregnancies in the Sapler sample appears to be mainly due to a greater willingness among boys in the Sapler sample to admit to having made a girl pregnant.

Among girls, the difference between Sapler and other schools was much smaller.

Given the high prevalence figures, it is surprising that only 49% of learners at both types of schools thought girls should worry about family planning.

Even fewer (44%) thought boys should worry about family planning. It could be, however, that these questions were misunderstood and read as implying that girls and boys should behave in such a way as to give them cause to worry about contraception.

Learners certainly did appear to understand the purpose of family planning. Seventy percent of learners at non-Sapler schools knew that family planning / contraception could be used to prevent pregnancy (stop having a baby), while even more (almost 80%) of learners at Sapler schools knew this.

The great majority (88% at both Sapler and other schools) therefore also endorsed the idea that if a girl wants to have sex, she should visit the clinic to ask about safe sex and family planning.

Exactly half the learners at Sapler schools (and 44% at other schools) claim actually to have visited the clinic for family planning.

One reason why the reported pregnancy rate is nevertheless so high may be that some learners may only have visited the clinic after the first pregnancy. Another possibility could be reluctance to use the family planning injection or misinformation about its long-term efficacy. 

Over 30% of learners at non-Sapler schools and 24% of learners at Sapler schools did not know that a woman could again fall pregnant after stopping the family planning injection. Believing that the injection permanently prevents pregnancy may be a significant disincentive to starting the injection. 

In addition it may be an incentive to engage in unprotected sex even after the effect of the injection has worn off, and it is therefore of concern that even at Sapler schools almost one in four learners are misinformed or unsure about the injection.

It could however be argued that knowledge of the effects of the family planning injection is especially important to girls, and the proportion of girls in Sapler schools who knew about this was as high as 82%.

Only around 40% of learners knew that if a girl had sex without contraception, she could still avoid having a baby by going to the clinic quickly. Knowledge of the "morning after" pill and of voluntary legal abortion may play a very important role in reducing unwanted pregnancies and this could therefore be considered an important knowledge deficit. 

However, the desirability of including it in the Sapler curriculum should be considered in the light of whether morning-after contraception and abortion are indeed available at local clinics.

Interestingly, girls were no more knowledgeable about morning-after contraception than the sample as a whole.

In summary, the great majority of learners at both types of schools rejected the idea of schoolgirl and schoolboy pregnancy, knew that family planning was a means of preventing it, and believed that visiting a family planning clinic was a good idea. 

However, a substantial minority nevertheless became pregnant or expressed no great desire to avoid pregnancy. There were also knowledge deficits with regard to the long-term effects of the family planning injection and morning-after contraception.