Students becoming mothers : a study of teen-age mothers within the local education system

Abstract

Teenage pregnancy is considered to be a problem within our society. One way of dealing with this problem is to create specific institutions which deal with these issues. Throughout our dissertation we focused on this institution the Schoolgirl Mothers' Unit, situated at Floriana. Through our research we tried to understand better what leads teenagers to become parents at such a young age. With two case studies we give an interpretation of two girls whose lives have changed drastically though these experiences. Through number of questionnaires distributed to the girls attending the SMU to understand the situation better. Our dissertation tries to answer the following set of questions: => What happens to the schooling of teenagers under sixteen after they become expectant mothers? => Do the young mothers to be continue attending their previous school? => Are the expectant mothers encouraged to leave school? => Is their somebody who encourages to continue on with their schooling? => If they are still under sixteen, and education is obligatory till this particular age, why is it they can leave after school? => Is not education compulsory for them too? => Does getting pregnant mean that one must be segregated and attend another form of school? => Is society degrading these girls? => What happens to their self-esteem, the needs and love they desire when they see that sometimes the whole world is against them? We hope that by our research people will be more aware of the situation and perhaps in a position to provide adequate and meaningful support to pregnant school teenage mothers. Our main conclusion is that by being pregnant at school age, these mothers should not be discriminated, and better support should be provided.