Unintended Early Pregnancies Harm Academic Performance of Zimbabwe's Primary Pupils

This qualitative study focused on how unintended early pregnancy harms academic performance of Zimbabwe's primary pupils, specifically aiming to understand the direct educational disruptions—such as absenteeism, reduced concentration, and test failure—that pregnant learner experience. Gaps in the literature that this study seeks to fill is the lack of empirical, learner centred qualitative evidence of immediate academic outcomes of early pregnancies in Zimbabwe's education system (Primary). 12 participants (4 Grade 7 female students, 5 teachers, 1 counsellor and two parents) were selected by purposive sampling, provided their informed consent and confidentiality, and participated in two focus groups to give data that were analysed through thematic analysis. One of the findings is that when everyone experiences stigmatisation constantly from peers and teachers, they become chronically absent, grade repeaters and there is considerable decline in achievement. The study suggested school based confidential counselling to keep the pregnant girls in school and set up a flexible catch up learning programme to minimise the gap. 

Keywords: academic performance, early pregnancy, psychosocial factors, school dropout, Zimbabwe.