Sierra Leone News: Education: Need To revisit Gbamanja Commission Report.

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Why it becomes difficult to give due commendations to the many laudable activities of government, is because the ordinary Sierra Leonean continues to live on the edge, in poverty even when the agenda for prosperity/PRSP2or 3 is supposed to be rooted in poverty reduction to bail the generality of our compatriots form grinding depravities. Since more than 50 % are illiterate and are not quite privileged to understand issues of statecraft, they are much more interested in the bread and butter this is why the poor state of our educational system gives great cause for concern. The news of the Freetown secondary School for Girls going privatized and one-shift was welcome news to many. I think the Board Chair Madam Rosamond Williams and her colleague authorities should be congratulated. Returning our schools to a single morning shift isone of the many recommendations of the Professor Gbamanja Commission of Inquiry into the poor results in school examinations in 2008, one year into the first term of President Koroma. The BECE and WASSCE results were so bad that year that President Koroma set up that Commission of inquiry charged with the responsibility of investigating the massive failure. At that time there were not known massive examination irregularities as we have today at every level of our educational sector, from leaking questions and sex for grades to taking answers to replace answer shits and cash for marks. It has gone that bad that very recently a Lecturer at the IPAM who is also a law student was caught replacing question papers with an already answered questions at a law examination right up college. The Gbamanja Commission of Inquiry had term of reference including: to investigate and identify the reasons for the poor performance of pupils in the BECE and WASSC examinations in Sierra Leone; ascertain the impact of the 6-3-3-4 system on the performance of the pupils and how that compares with the experience of the other countries that have adopted the same system; investigate the reasons for indiscipline in secondary schools; and to recommend immediate, short, medium and long-term measures to improve and sustain pupils’ performance in the BECE and WASSC examinations. The commmmission did its work and presented the report to the President. Later the Government White Paper which came out accepted most of the Commission’s recommendations. Under the “immediate Recommendations” category, they included: the provision of free and compulsory primary education in both policy and practice; establishment of Teaching Service Commission with a review of the conditions of service of teachers as a top priority action; establishment of the national institute of education, training and research by legislation as a semi-autonomous specialized agency for curriculum development, teacher development and educational research, with a study of special needs education as a priority; implementation of the recommendations of the WAEC Chief Examiner’s report on schools and submission of annual reports on the outcomes of implementation; criminalization of the practice of irregular admission of pupils in secondary schools; and the banning of “Access” courses in tertiary institutions. Recently the authorities at the Freetown Secondary School for Girls were proudly saying that all necessary preparations had been met to return the school to a single shift. We will have to see come September when schools reopen. For so many other schools the single shift remains a far cry in the wilderness because the facilities are not just there to house all the pupils in one shift. The simple reason is that both shifts use the same facilities at different times, morning and afternoon. What I have found out over the years is that we rush at addressing the symptoms of our challenges rather than the root causes. So there is no sustainability and so the problems remain till ninnang! Like I had said one or two years in some articles, instead of the President splitting the Ministry of Youth and Sports, perhaps it could have been more useful to split the Ministry of Education Science and Technology. Education touches almost every household in our country and it is the strongest pillar for development. In reviewing the 6-3-3-4 system, government decided to extend the number of years in the senior secondary level by one year after Ebola.So now instead of 6-3-3-4, we have the 6-3-4-4 system. We are yet to assess the impact of this especially on the results of the next WASSCE. But even before that it is clear that the extra one year is seen by my parents as a financial burden especially after Ebola and in an austerity period. Most parents will have to choose between paying school fees and other school materials or catering for the family in terms of food, and paying bills. Already some pupils have started bye-passing the extra one year by actually taking the WASSCE while in SS3. It looks like a gamble that bright pupils are taking on. One very serious anomaly in our school system is the idea of replacement recruitment. Even here teachers teach for several years before they get approved by the Ministry of Education and consequently get paid salaries. To know that even with some improvement made we still have some 45 % of our teachers that are untrained and unqualified. All these teachers who are not paid by government are referred to as Community Teachers who survive on the good will of their pupils’ parents and the magnanimity of school authorities. Especially in remote areas, the implications are far reaching. We once visited a school along the Masiaka- mile 91 highway where there were 5 teachers and only 2 were paid by government. The other 3 could go to school at will and consequently the kids suffer. It is a pity that we are having a very high concentration of schools in the big towns and cities where better facilities are expected. I think it is very important that our educational challenges are addresses by attacking headlong the root causes for a lasting solution. As a nation only a sound educational system can bail us from poverty into development and prosperity. We cannot have prosperity in the midst of abject poverty; neither can we talk about development without education. Education makes a man easy to rule, but difficult to enslave. By Ben Cambayma Thursday August 10, 2017.

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