Two 13-year-old girls were among the 48 students who required assistance to continue schooling after becoming pregnant in the last scholastic year, Education Ministry figures show.

Figures tabled in Parliament by Education Minister Evarist Bartolo show that last year, one 14-year-old and two 15-year-old girls also required help preparing for exams and attending classes after becoming pregnant.

The majority of pregnant students who chose to continue their educations were aged 15 to 16 – or O-level age.

There were 30 pregnant girls of that age who chose to continue preparing for the exams.

Mr Bartolo said the government was committed to assisting pregnant students to help them further their education. The government, he said, provided a specialised support programme which was held three times a week, as well as a number of other programmes for them, their partners and their parents.

Specialised counselling sessions for students and training initiatives for teachers were also ongoing, he said.

Last year, this newspaper reported that an average of 10 girls, aged 12 to 15, left school every year after getting pregnant.

Less than half of those who left school returned to continue their education, and most tried to find employment or applied for unemployment benefits.

Another set of Education Ministry figures shows there were 74 pregnancies at school age in 2008 alone. In one case that year, a girl who got pregnant at 13 ended up pregnant again at 15 while she was trying to prepare for her O levels. A 12-year-old was the youngest girl on the latest list of dropouts, with the majority aged between 14 and 15.

Andrea Dibben, a lecturer at the University of Malta and a PhD student at the University of Bristol who has spent the past two years studying pregnant teenagers, said that most of these girls came from a disadvantaged background. “Not to say that they were all disadvantaged. What I have found is that there are categories most of the girls fit into,” she said.

Others had actually been “saved” through motherhood, as their pregnancies had led them away from problems with drug abuse, self-harm and other anti-social behaviour.

The final category, Ms Dibben said, were those girls who used their pregnancies as a way to set targets for themselves and gain control over their lives.

ivan.martin@timesofmalta.com