The Deputy Director of Education in the Western Area Rural District, Mr.H.B. Kargbo, had told this medium that, out of the total number of 1,038 schools in the District, only 125 are government and government assisted schools from all levels.
He continued that this is a very serious challenge,as most of these community and private schools in the District have been posing as government assisted schools until when the recently conducted National School census survey brought this challenge to their attention.
Mr. Kargbo disclosed that his office is assiduously working on the mandate of the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education to ensure that all community schools and teachers, that meet the Ministry’s criteria, are approved to become government and government assisted schools by December,2018.
He furthered that he has not received any complaints of heads of schools within the District asking for monies from parents, while noting that they are grappling with challenges such as the discrepancy between enrollment figures in their respective schools and the amount of subsidy allocated to schools.
The Deputy Director concluded that he is providing all the necessary advice to heads of schools with regards how to handle all the challenges of the scheme. He said things are going on well on the implementation of the Free and Quality Education.
In fact, as schools have completed interviews for intake into JSS 1, other new admissions and supply of the education materials from government have also been successfully completed.