Social Causes of Pregnancies Among Secondary School Girls: Implication for Counselling in Pokot South Sub County of West Pokot County, Kenya

Abstract

Pregnancies among secondary school girls are on the rise globally and in Kenya. As a social problem, it has adverse effects on the girls’ academic performance, and career development as it results in girls dropping out of school and some are forced to early marriages. Despite efforts to prevent girls dropping out of school due to pregnancies, there is still evidence of high prevalence of pregnancy among girls in secondary schools. This study therefore sought to establish social, cultural and economic causes of secondary school girls’ pregnancies: Implication for counseling in Pokot South Sub County of West Pokot County, Kenya. The researcher adopted ex-post-facto survey research design. There were 18 public Secondary Schools in Pokot South-Sub County which had target population of 2436, constituted 18 head teachers, 18 head teacher counselors and 2400 students. Six girls’ schools were purposefully chosen with population of 462 forms twos and threes who were enrolled by March 2017. A sample size of 210 students, in addition of 6 head teachers and 6 head teacher counselors to a total of 222 who participated in the study. A similar questionnaire for all respondents and oral interview schedule for teacher counselors and head teachers was used to generate the data. Reliability value obtained was 0.82. The content validity of the instrument was ascertained with the assistance of the supervisor and experts from the Department of Psychology, Counseling and Educational Foundations of Egerton University. Data collected was analyzed with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) computer program and presented in tables of frequencies and percentages. The study established Social causes of pregnancy in the area of study as peer influence, mass media and neglect by parents. Cultural causes as silence behavior, it is taboo to talk about sex and sexuality matters and preserving tradition and economic as poverty, unemployment and infrastructure as among the factors predisposing Secondary School girls to pregnancy. The researcher recommends that the Ministry of Education should emphasize the importance of school counselor by training more and employing them. School administration to ensure training peer counselors and together with the Board of management to support the counseling department in school by making sure they have necessary materials, rooms and personnel that will facilitate the implementation of guiding and counseling programmes and policies. It is further recommended that the Ministry of Education and the County governments should develop advocacy programmes like bursaries and community awareness that mitigates against the girl child pregnancies. The Ministry of Education should upscale the counseling programmes in the schools in order to assist students in making better decisions on education and careers.

Keywords: Pregnancies, adolescence, counseling, peer, teacher counselor