TEENAGE pregnancy has been an age-old problem, but in today’s more open society, it has become a bedeviling social malady that requires the effort of all to be meaningfully addressed.There are many factors that contribute to the problem, but the chief cause remains the lack of parental guidance or proper supervision by guardians, and this includes the reluctance to educate their teenage charges about teenage sex and its implications.

No doubt many parents hold the belief that their children will eventually get to know about sex as they grow older, and that there is no hurry to sit them down and have these talks with them and at the same time listen to their views.
Of course, they will eventually know, but more often than not they learn from polluting sources which, in many cases, engender contaminating action, and the fruit thereof is teenage pregnancy.
The time for parents to talk to their children is not when they finish school, but while they are in school, since it is there that they are exposed to influences that can positively or negatively impact their young lives; and teenage sex, which leads to teenage pregnancy, is one of the problems they have to be ever vigilant against.
The reason for attention in this regard is clear. The State of the World Population 2013, produced by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has reported that Guyana is among six Caribbean countries with the highest prevalence of teenage pregnancy, having a birth rate of 97 per 1000 adolescent girls.
A local study conducted earlier had estimated that at least 30 per cent of the students in the school system are sexually active.
In today’s technological world, the need for parents to have open discussion with their children on sex and sexuality cannot be understated, as they are vulnerable to the sway of lewd images and videos which can be easily accessed on their phones.
For this reason, while it is a known fact that children of poor background are most vulnerable to teenage pregnancy, those of well-off background are also exposed.
For children of poor parents, it often-times happens out of the desire to either stand out or keep up with their peers, while for the well-off, it is having ready access to emancipate their feelings or experiment, based on what they see on screen.
More often than not, poverty is blamed for poor children becoming victims of the scourge, but this is not really the case, as poverty is not a death sentence, but rather a challenge to scale the ladder of success against all odds.
And for this to happen, parents do not necessarily have to be university educated, but must have an interest in their children’s performance in school; learning of their strengths and weaknesses and working to correct them; knowing their friends and their activities, both in and out of school; and valuing their opinion as important.
The more open parents are to their children, the more open their children would be to them, and the greater would be the likelihood of parents nipping in the bud a problem that can potentially affect the lives of their children in a negative way.
But raising a child should not only rest with parents; it should be a community effort, and here is where religious institutions and schools have an important role to play. Places of worship have a duty to instill or reinforce good values and morals in youth, gearing them to lead disciplined and decent lives.
Teenage pregnancy is just one of the ills of society, but it is one that has to be tackled through a comprehensive approach, involving the education of both boys and girls.
It is encouraging to know that the Ministry of Education has recognised the problem, and is giving due attention to it through the Health and Family Life Education Programme, and a programme to reintegrate teenage mothers into the school system.
Not much has been divulged on the latter of late, but the Health and Family Life Education Programme, which is a compulsory subject in some schools, should be implemented in all schools throughout the length and breadth of Guyana.
In doing so, Guyana could not only reduce the instances of motherhood in childhood, but ensure more stable families and less social maladies caused by teenage pregnancy.