The executive secretary of the Sierra Leone Adult Education Association (SLADEA), Shecku Kawusu Mansaray, has intimated that 61% of this country’s population are illiterates and called on the government to embark on massive educational campaign.
In an interview with this press at his SLADEA office, Mr Mansaray disclosed that in 2002 it was reported that 61% of “our population cannot read and write but with the concerted effort of government, NGOs and the international community to introduce free and compulsory education, the number declined drastically.
He however noted that most parents were now sending their children to school and that the adult literacy education was very successful in some parts of the country, but “the quality of education is one of the biggest challenges the country is faced with at this point in time, because some institutions lack trained and qualified teachers.”
The SLADEA executive secretary maintained that his organisation had been working as a partner to the new dispensation on educational deliveries in the non formal education sector to promote and support adult education in all its forms in Sierra Leone through the establishment of adult continuing educational centres at Waterloo, Makeni, Mile 91, Bo and Bonthe.
Mr Mansaray also noted that SLADEA had published books in traditional voices, environmental education, hand book on civic education for literacy facilitators, history and socio economic developments of in Sierra Leone and Mende poems with a host of training in reading and writing some indigenous languages like Mende, krio, Temne and Limba which started since 1987 when the organization was formed, and today some of these indigenous languages were now taught in some of the Junior Secondary Schools in the country.Concluding Mr Mansaray appealed to the government to embark on integrated approach on mass education and increase budget allotment for education
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