Ghost teachers and pupils who have been flocking into schools over the years, which has adversely impacted on the quantity of pupils in the classroom and consequently the quality of education over the years, will now be comprehensively addressed as President Koroma has promised to combat this endemic by stating that “anyone caught (in this act) the appropriate action will be taken.”
In his keynote address over the weekend at the opening of a school named after his mother in Makeni, the president said, “we want the teachers to focus and spend time with their pupils, monitor, grow with them, and show interest and compassion.”
“Teachers should not extort monies from their pupils by asking to pay fees or come with items to school that would pose difficulty for parents. I know that the present state of the country is difficult, but we need to make sacrifices to ensure that we get out of this quagmire,” the president said.
He said, “we are expecting a high level of dedication and concentration in their work as teachers and school administrators.”
He also noted that lots of wrong things are happening in the education sector, and “as a government we are spending lots of money on ghost teacher and if we are paying ghost teachers and not spending the amount we are supposed to spend on education we will not have the extra money to improve the conditions of services for the teachers.”
“We want teachers and proprietors to desist from the ghost teacher business. Now we do not only have ghost teachers we have ghost pupils as well,” the president disclosed.
He noted that some school proprietors do inflate the number of their pupils in order to get excess subvention from government.
“We need to put a stop to that because the government is going to monitor schools and their operations,” stressed President Koroma.
“In addition to the ghost teachers and pupils we also have ghost schools as well, these are the corrupt practices that existed in the past, we are trying to stop them but yet they are finding ways to bypass the system, but I’m assuring you that from now on anyone caught the appropriate action will be taken,” President Koroma said authoritatively.
“By next week [this week],” disclosed president Koroma “the anti-corruption legislation would have gone through parliament, and when it has gone through parliament we would not stop at any point, anywhere we have evidence of corruption we will pursue it vigorously,” he said.
“We need to wipe out corruption if we do not wipe it out we will not improve on the conditions of services of the teachers, we will not be able to improve on the facilities that we need to provide for the schools,” the president underscored.
By Ophaniel Gooding
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