Pregnant teenage girl. | Courtesy of Radio Tamazuj.

The expectant pupils of Seventh Day Adventist primary school are aged between 14 and 17.

They had returned from holidays – when the school administration took them for pregnancy tests.

This was after it realized that the pupils often fell asleep while in classrooms and they showed pregnancy signs.

They all tested positive for pregnancy.

“One of them denied that she was pregnant, which forced the school administration to subject them to tests,” said Mashir Agree, the Education Director for Mundri West County.

“After several signs of pregnancy appeared, such as sleeping in the classroom, especially after their return from vacation. After the examination, which included eight students, two of them left school after the test results.”

Mashir said the school administration wanted to send them home, according to the school regulations.

But the parents protested saying, they already paid fees for their daughters and demanded that they continue to prepare for the upcoming final exams.

In 2020, authorities in defunct Maridi State revealed that five girls were forced to terminate their studies after they got pregnant while in school.

According to a State of Adolescents and Youth Report in 2020, three out of ten girls became mothers in South Sudan.