DEPARTMENT of Education secretary Leonor Briones discouraged public schools from expelling pregnant students from school as it would only bear another traumatic experience for them, although she admits that private schools are doing that.
“You should not deprive a child of the opportunity to have an education. Walang ganyang klaseng policy sa public schools (There is no such policy in some public schools),” Briones said on Sunday last Sunday at SMX Convention Center in Davao City.
Briones said, however, that there are other schools in the country that requires a child to agree to be expelled once they get pregnant.
“There are schools I know who still expel students who get pregnant and unfortunately that is the prerogative of the private school especially if they say it as a warning,” she said.
Briones, who is known as a staunch advocate for sex education instead, eyes to strengthen the implementation of sex education in school’s curricula.
DepEd and the Department of Health is yet to discuss matters in a round table discussion pertaining to the provisions of the condom distribution program in addressing the surge of teenage pregnancy and Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome cases.
“Generally in public schools no, we are discouraging that. It’s bad enough that our child is about to bear another child because she is still young. It is bad enough that she goes through the trauma, the shame, and the embarrassment,” Briones said.