School in hot waters for expelling student
They thought she was pregnant because she had nausea
Today the world is talking about LGBT rights and same sex marriage. But in Sri Lanka sex is still considered as something that taboo, even though we are number one country in the world searching for porn on the internet.
Few years back there was a news about a school and parents who believed that HIV AIDS is spread by air and parents did not allow a child to attend school because the mother was suspected to be having AIDS.
Today we hear another horrifying story where a girl was expelled from a school because the school believed that the girl was pregnant just because she had nausea and vomited at school.
But even if we assume that the girl is really pregnant at the age of 15 should she be expelled from the school?
Although the child was later found not pregnant it shows the sad reality in Sri Lankan education system and culture, and there is lot to learn from such an incident.
How can a school decide whether a woman is pregnant? It is up to a medical personal to decide whether the girl was pregnant or not, and a proper pregnancy test should have been carried out. Nausea and vomiting is something that everyone will come across in their lives and it’s not a sign that the a woman is pregnant.
Is it a crime to be a teenage mother in this country?
Even if she is pregnant should she be expelled from the school?
Teenage pregnancy is something that should be discouraged, because even though the body is physically ready to be pregnant a woman is psychologically not ready to become a mother.
But even if we assume that the girl is really pregnant at the age of 15 should she be expelled from the school? Is it a crime to be a teenage mother in this country?
Should we educate a teenage mother and allow her to be an educated mother and a responsible human being for the country or should we expel her from school, ruin her education and the quality of life of the new born baby?
This is not the first time that such an incident happened in this country, as we tried to ruin the education of a child couple of years back because his mother was suspected to have AIDS. Today a girl was expelled from a school because the teachers thought that she was pregnant.
A similar incidents will happen in the future, we will talk about it and we will forget it just as we did during the previous times. No actions taken against the people who are taking these irresponsible decisions and no actions taken to educate the parents and the children.
Unless we address the fundamental faults in our culture and education system we will continue to hear such incidents happening in our country.
