APPI Condemns Discrimination of Pregnant Teacher Trainees

The Africa Public Policy Institute

The Africa Public Policy Institute (APPI), a policy think-tank, has said that the action to disallow pregnant teacher-trainees to write their final examination is manifestly illegal, and the rules upon which such action is based are illegal and unconstitutional.

According to the APPI, Article 27 (3) of the 1992 Constitution states that "Women shall be guaranteed equal rights to training and promotion without any impediments from any person."

"It should be clear from the above that any decision that operates against women, by virtue of their being women, thus amounting to discrimination against them, is wrong and illegal."

He said although the right to education was a fundamental human right enshrined in the Constitution, the nation has suffered for too long as a result of several discriminatory practices against women, such that the female youth had laboured in many ways for the male youth to be educated.

Also, he pointed out that if a college deprives a married woman of the right to get pregnant, thus preventing her from taking exams, that institution has seriously infringed on the fundamental human rights of that woman.

The consequences of depriving a woman of the right to education are very grave, hence, "This regulation does not resolve any mischief. It rather seeks to plunge more Ghanaian women into poverty, misery, and illiteracy," he noted.

This, according to him, would affect generations unborn, therefore, "the Ghana Education Service, the Ministry of Education and the Hon. Attorney General are, therefore, advised to reverse this decision," he said.

This was contained in a press statement signed by the Executive Director of the organisation, Professor Mike Oquaye, which added that the APPI read with utmost dismay, the publication that pregnant teacher-trainees could not write examinations.

Prof Oquaye said the article mentioned that "the Principal of St. Monica's Training College says they are constrained to do so under "rules and regulations stipulated by the Teachers Education Division Manual for Teacher Trainees."

He said this rule give principals powers to dismiss, suspend or disallow female students found pregnant from taking examinations, while the GES Code of Discipline for teacher trainees 1998, Page 21, further states that "a female student who becomes pregnant would be made to withdraw for a minimum period of one year, to apply for readmission."

According to him, these powers are so wide, they lead to discriminatory application against some women, asking, "If the minimum period is one year withdrawal, what is the maximum?"

In his view, for the same "offence," one student may be withdrawn for one year, and another for ten years, stressing, "why apply for re-admission? What if this is used as a tool of discrimination? Is the admission forfeited at this stage? On what legal basis?"

He observed that if one conducts a research, it would show that such a practice had destroyed the lives of many Ghanaian women, pushed to cause abortion under such circumstances, among others.

He, therefore, referred to Article 22 (1) of Ghana's 1992 Constitution, which provides that "Special care should be accorded to mothers during a reasonable period before and after child birth... "

Thus, women should not be discriminated against, maltreated, or deprived of any privileges or opportunity whatsoever, by dint of the fact that they are pregnant.

He said the present welfare state cannot provide the pregnant woman free maternal health with one hand and take away the right to education with the other.

"If in a mixed Training College, a male adult student impregnates a female adult student, why should the male adult student take his exams, but the female cannot? And if a male adult student impregnates a woman in his hometown, will he be made not to take his exams because he is going to be a father?" the APPI questioned.

The APPI believes that this situation should not haunt the female just because of her sex, lamenting, "Incidentally, this discrimination does not even take into account the fact that the female student is married under our customary or other law."

It added that any law enacted by any authority whatsoever, including an Act of Parliament, which law infringes on the Constitution, is null and void, illegal, otiose, invalid and of no effect.

It stressed: "That is the quintessence of the Constitutional dispensation in which we are," thus, the law in the GES Manual is actually null and void.

Furthermore, the APPI hinted it was instructing its legal team to take legal action in the Supreme Court for affected past students and "those whose rights are being trampled upon right now, unless steps are taken at once to compensate all affected women, and publicly rectify this injustice to Ghanaian womanhood."