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Draft bill grants students full set of maternity rights

"This legislation [would] bring us in compliance with already existing laws requiring schools to help pregnant students finish school."

-- Chen Yi-hsing, education ministry official

Thanks to new legislation drafted by the Ministry of Education, pregnant school-age girls may soon have one less reason to quit school or fall behind in their coursework to give birth.

Impending motherhood could be little more than a temporary snag for girls hoping to finish school in a country beset by the highest teen birth rate in Asia, Chen Yi-hsing (陳益興), the education ministry's director of secondary education, said yesterday as he introduced a draft bill aimed at protecting pregnant girls.

High schoolers entering motherhood would get all the maternity leave rights that working adult women are entitled to if the bill is passed, he said.

Titled "High School Student Performance Evaluation Methods" (高級中學學生成績考查辦法), the bill contains provisions exempting pregnant teens from performance evaluation penalties and giving them ample time off to give birth and raise a baby, Chen said by telephone yesterday.

"This legislation [would] bring us in compliance with existing laws requiring schools to help pregnant students finish school," he said, citing the Gender Equality Law (性別平等法) and Gender Equality Education Law (性別平等教育法).

Those laws, Chen said, contain clauses requiring education authorities to "protect the right of pregnant students to receive an education."

They also require schools to devote resources to helping teenage mothers-to-be graduate from high school, he added.

"Those are laws passed by the legislature," Chen said, brushing off criticism that the new bill would encourage girls to get pregnant.

Facing pressure from the Commission on Women's Rights, the education ministry was merely trying to enforce laws already on the books, Chen said, adding that discussion and consultation on the bill with experts would continue until next week before a final draft would be released.

The bill drew criticism yesterday.

"My opinion [on the matter] differs from that of the education ministry," Taipei County Parents' Association director Lu Hung-chieh (盧鴻頡) said yesterday.

Students could be encouraged to engage in irresponsible sexual behavior by the bill as it provides a safety net for girls, Lu said.

But, he said, if a girl is already pregnant and chooses to give birth, the ministry should provide her with certain "conveniences."

"But there should be consequences," he added, citing community service "that doesn't tax [the girl's] physical health" and standards of academic performance that must be met by the girl once she re-enters high school.

If passed by the legislature, the bill would exempt maternity leave from being recorded as an illegitimate absence. Grades for courses cut short because of pregnancy would be withheld rather than reflect a failing performance, he said.
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