The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has expressed shock at a revelation that teachers in the Central Region impregnated 301 pupils and students last year, David Ofori-Acheampong, General Secretary of the GNAT, has said.

According to him, GNAT has always been sensitising teachers on the fact that engaging in such acts was unethical and could lead to the dismissal of culprits, and, so, it beats their imagination as to why the teachers would impregnate the young girls.

A report read at the 2016 Ghana Health Service (GHS) Performance Review event held at the University of Cape Coast, on Thursday February 23, said out of the 12,048 young girls who got pregnant in the region, small-scale farmers were responsible for 986 (19.3 percent) of them, while drivers were responsible for 676 (13.2 percent). Small-scale miners were responsible for 397 (7.8 percent) of those pregnancies, while unemployed men were responsible for 353 (6.9 percent).

Primary and secondary school teachers followed with 301 pregnancies, representing 5.9 percent of all teenage pregnancies in the Central Region in 2016. About 837 of the pregnant teenagers could not confirm the profession of their partners.

According to the GHS, although the number of teenage pregnancies recorded in the year under review, indicated a decline from previous figures of 12,048 in 2015, and 13,355 in 2014, it was still “unacceptably high.”

Speaking on this matter in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom on Accra 100.5FM on Friday February 24, Mr Ofori-Acheampong said: “We are shocked at the numbers involved because the leadership of GNAT has always been cautioning the teachers that such acts are unethical, and that when any teacher is found guilty, that teacher could be sacked, and, so, if it is true that last year alone, 12,000 plus students in the Central Region alone were impregnated by the teachers and about 300 teachers were involved, we at GNAT would have known about it, and, so, we were quite shocked at the news.”

He added: “I have instructed the regional secretary in Central Region to go to all the district offices in the region to furnish me with the data on all schools in the Central Region that will easily give us the number of students who got pregnant. Following that, GNAT will interrogate the matter to find out the number of girls who were impregnated by the teachers. This figure is unacceptable.”