Concord Times (Freetown)
With John Momoh
13 June 2011
opinion
Freetown — It is quite a privilege that the ‘White Paper’ meant to serve as a way forward for improving education in this country known as the Prof. Gbamanja Report, was last week presented to His Excellency President Ernest Bai Koroma at State Lodge in the wake of celebrations marking the Day of the African Child on the 16th June. The celebration of June 16 as the Day of the African Child every year began after a United Nations General Assembly proclamation to remember victims of the racist South African apartheid regime’s security forces massacre of hundreds of school children that were staging peaceful demonstrations in favour of desegregated school system.
The promulgation of a UN Resolution for the observance of the Day of the Africa Child was thus a tacit recognition of the rights of the Africa child. For example the right to education, to free expression, to choose a career of their choice, the right to better care and upbringing, the right to health and sanitation. The right to education is very important, because education provides the key to the development of the youth so that they become assets instead of liabilities to society.
What is interesting to note is that barely three decades ago, Sierra Leone enjoyed an enviable reputation as the Athens of West Africa in view of the degree of quality education and exposure to western civilization, something that was lacking in most post independent African countries. Even during the era of many African countries struggle for independence, Fourah Bay College – one of West Africa’s oldest institutions of higher learning – attracted foreign students from several African countries such as Nigeria and Ghana as well as from countries that were agitating for their independence such as Zimbabwe and Namibia.
Unfortunately however there was a rapid decline of many aspects of life in Sierra Leone in the decades after independence. The standard of education was steadily declining and the intake of foreign students from Ghana, Nigeria, The Gambia and other African countries became significantly reduced, while the number of secondary school leavers in the country, especially those that cannot be absorbed into the system, were on the increase. It soon became apparent that there are loopholes in the educational system, considering that the small annual student intake at Fourah Bay College and Njala University cannot match-up with the growing number of qualified secondary school leavers in a country of an increasing population growth from 3 to over 4 million.
The rebel war that ruined the economic and social fabric of this country is considered by many as a blessing in disguise as it afforded Sierra Leone in collaboration with the international community to make an inventory of whatever development achievements that this country has been making over the years since independence. A stock-taking of this country’s achievements in the educational arena shows that one of the contributing factors for the backwardness of Sierra Leone was the near neglect of the educational system as the vast majority of Sierra Leoneans lack access to educational opportunities at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels. The existing schools lack much needed instructional materials and logistics while the salary of teachers is an insult compared to what their counterparts in the teaching profession in neighbouring countries are earning. There is a wide regional and ethnic gap in the access of the girl-child to education in the country.
The rebel war thus awakened the consciousness of government and the international community to rectify some of the discrepancies in access to education in this country. And as a result of the war it also made it mandatory not only to rehabilitate educational institutions destroyed during the war but when necessary to modernize them. Real attempt to implement the planning of the educational system was realized during the war era with the introduction of the SABABU World Bank-sponsored project whose objective was to ensure the decentralization of primary and junior secondary school level education, so that every chiefdom in this country can boast of at least one secondary or junior secondary school. Damaged school buildings in the country were rehabilitated by funds provided by international donors such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
The plan to improve the educational system also entailed bringing tertiary education to the door-step of the average Sierra Leonean considering that university and college education is mostly centralized in the Western Area or Njala, thus posing travelling difficulties to students in other parts of the country. In this regards the curricula at Fourah Bay College and Njala University in the Southern Region were diversified while the Milton Margai College of Education and Technology was upgraded to a degree granting institution with a diversified curricula. Improvements were also done to upgrade the curricula at the Institute for Public Administration and Management (IPAM) to a degree granting level while both the Eastern Polytechnic and the Northern Polytechnic located in Kenema and Makeni respectively were established for reasons of addressing the higher educational needs of the Eastern and Northern regions.
As it is often a debate point in Parliament, the SLPP regime of ex-President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah left a rich legacy of educational infrastructure. The challenge that falls on the APC regime since they came to power was ensuring that the development momentum in the educational arena remains rekindled. Some of the recurrent problems in the educational arena include addressing grievances over low salary. It is generally acknowledged that although the educational infrastructures have been established, the teaching profession is still less attractive as what many teachers earn is a pittance compared with what their peers are receiving in other African countries such as Senegal and the Ivory Coast or Ghana and Nigeria. The Education Ministry is still to put to rest the issue of ghost-payrolls and recruited teachers working without their names being on the payrolls.
It is also incumbent on the APC regime to come up with a realistic decision on the proliferation of tertiary institutions whose quality of graduates is raising eye-brows. A case in point is the St. Clement University distance learning, whose controversy had been resolved with the institution’s affiliation to Njala University. There is equally among many other challenges facing the educational system that should be addressed in the Gbamanja Report, the urgent need to trash out the frequent rancour between the Fourah Bay College authorities and the Ministry of Education and to ensure that the creation of jobs for school and college leavers does not lag behind the large number of graduates entering the job market annually.
In Sierra Leone much remains to be done in efforts to making the youth and children responsible members of the society. There is a need for gender balance in the number of girls having the opportunity to even complete their secondary education which is disproportionate, while many parents and guardians are extremely cruel to their children and wards, sometimes even deliberately frustrating their chances to attend schools. The ball is in the courts of Government.
AllAfrica – All the Time