It has been almost four months since President Julius Maada Bio made the commitment to fulfill one of his flagship programmes when he declared education free for all school going pupils in pre-primary, primary and secondary schools. He also added another very crucial component, which is mixing quality to the free education. That was in August 20 this year at the Miatta Conference centre.
The idea of free quality education is noble and well thought. At least Sierra Leoneans, who could not afford to send their siblings to private schools, could now avail themselves of the opportunity to educate their children. In fact, every true Sierra Leonean appreciated the launching exercise.
During the launching, President Julius Maada Bio made several promises including payment of tuition, supply of core textbooks, including Mathematics, English and Science. Chalk, dusters, pencils, erasers and several other school learning materials were also promised.
However ten weeks since schools have reopened the baby of the New Direction government, which is incidentally the free quality education, appear to be facing challenges. These challenges must be immediately and adequately addressed to have it thriving.
It is a fact that parents have largely welcomed the free quality education. They have responded to the flagship programme of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) by sending their children in large numbers to school. The children too are happy with the New Direction in providing free quality education for them.
The SLPP government has also promised to recruit another five thousand teachers to augment the free quality education. Teachers, by every indication, are the cornerstones of the flagship programme so their numbers should be increased. Quite good and rewarding!
However the nightwatch believes that the New Direction government has many hurdles to jump in order to arrive at desired goals. We will not usher in any blames, but it would appear certain school materials were selectively supplied to certain schools and leaving out the others. There are some schools still waiting to receive textbooks and other school materials. Only yesterday the nightwatch listened to complaints from schools in central Freetown that they have yet to receive books.
The Sierra Leone Teachers Union and teachers have also threatened to engage in a strike action because of what they complain as not being adequately paid. The nightwatch will not overemphasize the fact that teachers form the core of the free quality education. To have them threatening a strike action is most unfortunate.
The nightwatch believes that the Ministry of Education, and by extension the government of Sierra Leone, should be engaged in rigorous negotiations with teachers to avert a very volatile situation that will adversely affect the flow of the free quality education.
When the Minister of Finance flamboyantly told Sierra Leoneans of the provision of 50 buses he did not know the weight of his words and the accompanying expectations from parents and guardians. Up to now there is no sign that the buses will be here soon. This is one unexplained factor that will eat into the fabric of the SLPP flagship programme. We should not waive away this cumbersome nature of our procurement process. Had it not been the bottlenecks involved, in procurement, the school buses would have been here by now. Sadly the contract has already been awarded but it is yet to be implemented.
Another thing that poses a direct threat to the free quality education is the number of strike actions threatened by various institutions in Sierra Leone, doctors inclusive. Certainly Government cannot afford this litany of strike threats when school children should be going to school. It means therefore that the salary spring, that is threatening Sierra Leone, should be aborted by government through rethinking the success of the free quality education.
The nightwatch is of the view that the lofty promises of President Maada Bio, in instilling free quality education in Sierra Leone, will not be met if the SLPP government and the President do not address some of the problems we have highlighted in this piece.
We cannot succeed in this free quality education if we fail to adequately pay our teachers; if we fail to augment the transportation of pupils to and from school; if we fail to recruit the number of teachers President Bio’s government has promised to recruit.
When a teacher collects money for the function of issuing out results to pupils, the Anti-Corruption Commission and Sierra Leoneans will cry corruption. But why should the Ministry of Education allow WAEC to continue this idea of scratch cards to access results? Is it free quality education when pupils buy scratch cards to access their results?
We also like the Ministry of Education to understand that there are certain headmasters in central Freetown schools who make extra school charges, leaving parents to hustle around to find money for those school charges.
The fact is that we cannot succeed with free quality education if School Inspectors remain armchair inspectors. They should visit schools regularly, like it used to happen in the 70s and late 80s, to observe and see where school principals, headmasters and teachers are performing satisfactorily or not. So government should visit the drawing board again and see what best it could do to solve some of the numerous challenges facing the programme, or else the free quality education will be on a life support jacket.