By Ragan M. Conteh
An Independent Member of Parliament from Pujehun District, Hon Shiaka Samai, has accused lecturers, including teachers, of drinking alcohol in staff rooms thereby abandoning their duties as tutors in schools.
He disclosed that this perennial habit has the propensity to derail and sabotage the free quality education of President Julius Maada Bio.
Hon. Shiaka Samai made the disclosure on Thursday 2nd July 2020 during the Presidential Address debate in the Chambers of Parliament, Tower Hill in Freetown.
According to Hon. Samai, some of the students are even now running after lecturers, begging them to teach, a development he perceived as not being helpful in achieving the free and quality education President Bio is yearning for.
The MP said some of the lecturers receive bribes from students before they go to classrooms to teach. “Sex for grades is another thorny issue in the throat of students,” he said.
He also informed Members of Parliament that, a lot of teachers now have pin codes but they did not receive their salaries, especially the new recruits. This is a situation that should be one of the paramount concerns of the President and government if they want to succeed in education.
The female opposition APC Member of Parliament, representing Constituency 113, Hon Rugiatu Rose Kanu, in her submission, said she has yet to see anything regarding the much talked about free quality education in Sierra Leone, adding that most of the schools across the country have nothing good to write home about.
She pointed out that some students still sit on floor taking classes; teachers are not being paid. She informed that the New Direction is just putting more burdens on parents rather than solving problems on education.
She revealed that the environment is not safe and secure for students because lots of female students are misused by the very teachers themselves in schools. This, she said, is due to the lack of school monitoring and supervision as well as enforcement of law.
He said students in the hard-to-reach communities are suffering and have not been experiencing the flavor of the New Direction free education project, because most of the schools in those areas do not even have toilet facilities, neither do they have classroom sitting accommodation facilities.
She cautioned President Bio to be explicit in his speech, especially on education when delivering his address to the nation. Hon Kanu informed that most of the teachers have not been paid. Whether the Government even have plans to enhance the status of teachers, citing the teachers who demonstrated in Bo recently, show the loopholes of the free education gimmick.
Hon Rose Kanu also said the country does not have School Supervisors anymore, but it has Political Supervisors who only care for their wellbeing and their political party, which they lay allegiance to.
Hon. Kanu also disclosed that logistics is a major critical challenge, adding that the New Direction has yet to pay much attention to the fulfillment of their promises, which they made during the 2018 general elections campaign.