Why teenage mothers in Zimbabwe struggle to get educated

has never really known childhood. Since the age of seven she has headed her household in Tsholotsho, a town in rural western Zimbabwe, after her parents went to work abroad. The oldest of five, she scraped a living growing crops while trying to keep up with her schoolwork. But in 2020 the covid-19 pandemic struck, coming shortly after a devastating drought. Farmers could not afford to pay child labourers like Ms Ndlovu. “So I looked for a man to help support my family,” she recalls. She found one who demanded sex in exchange for money. Aged 17, she got pregnant.Ms Ndlovu was one of 4,770 Zimbabwean girls to drop out of school in 2020 because of pregnancy, up from about 3,000 the year before, according to government statistics. The true number may be higher. Siqinisweyinkosi Mhlanga, who runs Orphan’s Friend, a community centre in Tsholotsho where Ms Ndlovu now spends her days, says that there may be ten times more school dropouts in her province than the official tally. In August 2020 Zimbabwe’s government amended the Education Act to prohibit schools from expelling pregnant girls, joining a growing club of African countries that are letting pregnant teenagers continue with their education. A third of Zimbabwean women marry before they are 18.