Keetmanshoop — Senior Education Officer for Health and Wellness in the //Kharas region, Otilie Lamberth, has raised the alarm over the rising number of teenage pregnancies in the region, with 17 cases at secondary schools and four at primary schools this year.
Lamberth revealed the figures during an engagement with Miss World Namibia, Elly Aron, who visited the regional directorate last week as part of a familiarisation tour for her campaign against teenage pregnancy.
Lamberth said the region recorded 84 learner pregnancies in 2025, compared with 35 in 2024.
"Our aim is to have zero pregnancies. I keep saying that even one pregnancy should ring a bell. We should treat it as a red flag," she said.
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She said the directorate was unable to identify specific reasons for the pregnancies because the circumstances surrounding each case differed.
"It could be as a result of rape. It could be as a result of coercion or any other factor not in the girl's best interests," Lamberth said.
She added that the lack of specific information on the causes of pregnancies made it difficult to develop targeted interventions.
Lamberth said learner pregnancies also contributed to school dropouts, while the Ministry of Education continued to train life skills teachers in implementing the Learner Pregnancy Policy.
The ministry conducts community engagements via the Regional School Health Task Force to educate parents and communities about the policy. She identified schools with high learner pregnancy reports and advocated moving beyond a blanket approach to the problem.
"We should go down and do a thorough assessment and have scientific proof of the reasons for pregnancies in the different settings," Lamberth said.
She said interventions should be tailored to specific challenges faced by schools and communities. Lamberth highlighted parental involvement and community engagement as key areas, especially in communities with seasonal workers where children may lack supervision when parents are at work.
She identified Noordoewer as needing more support due to seasonal agricultural workers.
"Whatever is taught at school should be reinforced at community level, and that is lacking," she said.
Aron, leading a nationwide teenage pregnancy-prevention campaign, aims to complement existing efforts by life skills teachers. Through the Penomwene Trust, she seeks to promote youth wellbeing as a preventive strategy against teenage pregnancy.
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"I believe that if the issue is brought directly to the learners, then we would get more in-depth reasoning from them," she said.
The beauty queen said her campaign would adapt based on each region's circumstances and statistics. She mentioned the //Kharas visit was part of a familiarisation tour to understand regional challenges before implementing tailored programmes.
"It's with purpose we learn, we listen, but the collaboration implements," Aron said.
She said the information gathered from the different regions would also inform the work she plans to present when she represents Namibia internationally later this year.
