Coping in silence: Challenges faced by pregnant-students at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana

Abstract

Post Beijing Conference has seen tremendous efforts by governments especially in developing countries such as Ghana to improve access to education at all levels and most critically to females. Over the last two decades, Ghana has put in place various interventions tailored to increasing female school enrolment and reducing the gender gap in education. Commendable results have been achieved. For instance, there is gender parity at the basic education and an increasing enrolment figures at the tertiary level. What has over the years been overlooked is how female students cope on campus as a result of combining academic work with other roles. The study is situated within this context, and using the seven roles framework and the bio-psychosocial model, it assesses the challenges pregnant-students face and how they cope at University of Cape Coast campus. A combination of accidental and snowball sampling techniques were employed to contact 62 respondents as well as conduct 12 in-depth interviews. More than 90 percent of the respondents were married. Common among the roles played include individual, occupational, and conjugal roles. These contributed to various challenges including psychological, socio-economic and academic-related challenges. Emotion-based coping strategies were mostly adopted to deal with the challenges. In the short term, the University must develop interventions to assist pregnant-students to cope effectively on campus, while in the long term, develop a policy to that effect