Schoolgirl pregnancy, dropout or pushout?: an Ubuntucentric re-construction of the education for student mothers in Malawi

Abstract

ABSTRACT This critical phenomenological study investigates the lived experiences of young women returning to secondary school after pregnancy in Malawi. Through the lens of Ubuntu, an African philosophy on humanness, the article conducts an analysis of the driving and restraining forces affecting student mothers’ schooling experience. The data were gathered from young women who left secondary school due to pregnancy and later returned after delivery. The findings highlight important but complex forms of support and challenges embedded within familial and school systems related to student motherhood. This article argues for Ubuntucentric educational practices for student mothers that pursue continuation-oriented approaches and resist structural inequalities that ‘push the learners out’ of the school system.