Giyani - A team of health professionals will be dispatched to Limpopo schools with high pregnancy rates.
Recent media reports about the high pregnancy rate at Mavalani High School outside Giyani, where 57 girls are pregnant, forced the department to intervene, said provincial Health and Social Development spokesperson, Cecil Motsepe, on Tuesday.
"We aim to seriously implement intervention measures at this particular school and many others throughout the province starting next Monday," Motsepe said.
He said nurses, social workers and psychologists will be sent to schools from Monday to provide the department with a "better picture of what is happening."
Motsepe said the department would also work closely with police as some pregnant pupils were minors.
He said the intervention measures would include implementing the School Health Nurses Programme, which will deploy nurses to provide services at schools on a full-time basis after undergoing special training.
The nurses will support teachers with curriculum-related school health activities and also provide health-related information to pupils.
Motsepe said the Peer Education Programme had also trained 60 school leavers to educate pupils about health and sex-related services offered by clinics.
The Youth Friendly Services Programme had also been implemented at 255 of the province's 416 clinics, where nurses are encouraged to be friendly and not judgemental when dealing with young people visiting clinics.
Meanwhile, 18 pupils from Mavalani High School appeared in the Giyani magistrate's court on Monday on charges of public violence after a riot broke out on Friday. Pupils were protesting against the media publicity surrounding the school's pregnancy rate.
Limpopo police spokesperson, Colonel Ronel Otto, said police were called in after pupils damaged a teacher's car and broke windows at the school.
"Since most of the accused are minors, they were released into the care of their parents and to also give police enough time to investigate," said Otto.
The pupils are expected back in court on 18 February. They have not been asked to plead.
