JUST a few years ago, the very idea of Merseyside schools offering pregnancy tests would have been viewed with distaste, maybe even absolute horror, by almost all sections of the community.

Some will still find the idea anathema today, believing it to be a sphere in which schools have no right to involve themselves.

But the social landscape has transformed over the past few years. With so many teenagers unwilling to accept personal responsibility themselves for their behaviour, and many parents, too, found equally wanting, schools have become burdened with many duties and obligations that would have been unthinkable in the last century.

But with Britain having one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Europe, it was never going to be enough to just hope the problem would resolve itself, however unpalatable that might appear to many.

Too many schoolgirl pregnancies means too many dysfunctional families, which in turn means society pays the price at some time in the future.

Offering pregnancy tests now seems little more than an extension of the pastoral services that schools routinely offer to older pupils. We might regard it as unfortunate that parents are not necessarily told about what is happening to their children, but it is at least something that girls are encouraged to inform their guardians that they are accessing the services provided – even if they ultimately choose to tell no-one.

We cannot wash our hands of teenage pregnancies and delude ourselves that the headache will go away – because it won’t. The pregnancy tests service planned by Wirral – and soon Liverpool – demonstrates that the authorities are considering youngsters’ best interests.

To many families today, that is the last thing on their minds.