SOME Jamaican schools have been shunning teen mothers who have passed through the Women's Centre of Jamaica Foundation programme, denying them the chance to continue their education after giving birth.

Executive Director of the Women's Centre Beryl Weir said it is often hard to reinstate the girls after they have passed through the programme, as they are often stigmatised and refused a place back in school, even while teen fathers remain on roll.

Addressing reporters and editors at the Observer's weekly Monday Exchange meeting earlier this week, Weir said when a girl becomes pregnant in school, she is often forced to leave the education system completely because of this practice, which is partly supported by the Education Act.

"I think you are well aware that when a girl becomes pregnant in school in Jamaica, she must leave the education system -- the Education Act actually says that," Weir said. "And so she leaves. And had it not been for programmes like the Women's Centre, that girl would be left to chance. If she happens to know a teacher or someone who could get her back into the education system, or if her parents are able to pay for private tuition -- other than that, she would remain semi-literate."

According to the Education Act (Education Regulations 1980) Section 31, "a student of a public education institution who becomes pregnant shall be excluded from attending the institution during the period of pregnancy, but the minister may take such steps as may be necessary to permit her to continue her education in that institution or if convenient in another public institution".

It also states that arrangements may be made to enable students who have been suspended or excluded from school for pregnancy or other health reasons to sit important examinations in connection with the completion of their education.

Weir said 2,139 girls up to the age of 17 became pregnant in 2009. The Women's Centre takes the girls during the pregnancies, ensures they continue their education and then helps immediately after their children's births, before attempting to get those who qualify matriculated back into the school system.

It's this attempt, she said, which often proves problematic, as some principals directly refuse to accept the teens, some for fear of "contamination".

Other schools, she said, won't accept the teens who once attended their institutions, but will accept other girls from the Women's Centre.

"But the boys remain in school, that is not a problem!" Weir fumed. "As a matter of fact [the boy] is considered 'macho' by his peers and everybody else, as he 'has done a wonderful thing'."

According to Joyce Hewett, past president and co-ordinator for public education and legal reform at WOMAN Inc, this behaviour is a discriminatory action on the part of the schools.

"The girls are not voluntarily dropping out -- they are kicked out!" Hewett said passionately. "The stigma that was there in 1978 remains, where the girl is seen as the perpetrator."

But, Weir said, while some schools are shunning teen mothers, studies done show that these girls most times go on to excel in their studies, and the rate of second pregnancies is lower for those who enter the Women's Centre programme.

She said one study showed that at least seven per cent of girls from the centre went on to tertiary-level education.

"The best part is that it showed that for every dollar that the Jamaican government spent on a girl at the Women's Centre, the Government benefited by at least $7," Weir said. "So the achievement of the Women's Centre is there in the research."

She explained too, that for any given year, there are a number of teen mothers in the programme who entered the centre in a crisis situation -- pregnant, not liking themselves, being criticised by everybody and whose parents sometimes want nothing to do with them -- and who are nursed back to emotional health by the centre.

Weir proudly stated that the girls excel once placed back into the public school system.

"Many of those who get scholarships are Women's Centre students, but we don't go around saying that they are, because even in the schools nowadays their placements are kind of a secret where even after 32 years there are still school principals who will not take back the girls," Weir said. "So we tend not to broadcast what the girls are doing but they excel. It is like a complete turnaround. "