Class 10 student in Odisha hostel delivers baby after writing her matric exam

The girl, who stayed in an ashram school run by state SC/ST department gave birth to a baby boy at the Chitrakonda Sub-Divisional Hospital. The girl, who was pregnant for the past several months, attended classes and appeared for exams without the school authorities noticing her condition.

The girl’s father said a teacher of her school phoned him on Monday afternoon asking him to reach school. “When I reached school I was told that she has delivered a baby. My daughter stayed in hostel and did not visit home for a long time. A auxillary nurse midwife regularly does health check up of girl students in hostel. How did anyone miss signs of pregnancy,” he asked.

On the other hand, the school teachers have blamed the hostel warden for the incident. The local police as well as the District Welfare Officer have started a probe into the matter.

More than 1.58 lakh girl students study in the schools run by the state SC/ST department. Though 16 cases of pregnancies among the girl students in those schools were reported between 2010 and 2015, there were 5 cases between 2015 and 2022. In 2023 and 2024, however, no cases were reported.

In January 2019 at the Beltikiri Ashram School in Dhenkanal district. A 13-year-old tribal girl, a Class 8 student, was found to be seven months pregnant after complaining of stomach pain. She alleged rape by the school’s headmaster, Kartik Gaur.

A 2021 audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General flagged poor hostel infrastructure—70% lacked boundary walls, and many had no security—potentially enabling such incidents. The department has introduced measures like hotline phones in hostels and regular health checks, but implementation varies.

Pregnancies among girl students in these schools have surfaced as a significant concern, often tied to sexual abuse, inadequate supervision, and socio-cultural vulnerabilities. While exact numbers of pregnancy cases are not systematically published by the department, several high-profile incidents and aggregated data point to the issue’s scale. For instance, between , Odisha reported 16 cases of sexual abuse in these residential schools, alongside 155 student deaths, as revealed in a Right to Information response cited by The Economic Times in August 2015. Some of these abuse cases resulted in pregnancies, though specifics on how many were not detailed in that dataset.

To stop teenage pregnancies among students of tribal hostels, the state government has deployed 3000 matrons and 336 ANMs. In addition, health check-ups of the inmates are being conducted. A woman cook, woman watchman and a woman assistant superintendent have been deployed in each hostel. Strict instructions have been given that no male person can enter the hostel without a woman companion.

In the residential schools and hostels run by Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes welfare department, CCTV cameras have been installed on both sides of the main gate, at the washroom and in the verandah of the hostel.