By Hajaratu Kalokoh
The National Council for Civic Education & Development (NaCCED) say they are planning to reintroduce civic education in schools across Sierra Leone by next academic year. Director of Curriculum Development & Training at the Council, Alphan Tajawie, told Politico that the aim was to foster knowledge on citizens’ rights and responsibilities in the country.
Civic education used to be a topic under Social Studies in the school curricula, but was later abandoned. It will now be introduced as a subject in primary and secondary school curricula, according to the new plan.
“The vision of the president [Julius Maada Bio] is what we are moving forward with. We intend doing it next academic year because when you look at the workload for now, we are still writing it (textbook). After that we must do pretexting, validation and launching. So, we will not do it this academic year. We are very hopeful that come next academic year we will introduce it (civic education subject),” Tajawie said.
NaCCED was established by President Bio in August 2018, with the goal of promoting the demand for good governance by addressing a wide variety of political and governance issues such as corruption and civic apathy.
NaCCED also looks at promoting knowledge on social issues like violence, drug abuse, gangsterism, health and environmental protection.
Currently, the council is on the process of developing a textbook on Civic Education. The book will target primary and junior secondary schools across the country.
"The agreement by the consultant is to develop a teaching guide for the teachers and they will in turn teach teachers. So, it’s like teaching teachers based on the guide you are going to produce and those teachers who will be taught will in turn train other teachers," Tajawie said.
Mamud Kargbo, a pupil of Prince of Wales explained to Politico that "introducing civic education is good because we need to learn our rights and responsibilities at an early age. In as much as they are trying to target primary and junior schools, they should also try hard to target senior schools too.”
The Ministry of Senior and Basic Education is the lead government ministry that NaCCED is working with in this initiative, but Tajawie said they have not had commitment from the ministry in developing the textbook.
"We have been inviting them (Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education) to come forward in the discussion but we have had some challenges in their commitment. Although they have been promising to come, we will continue to encourage them,” he said.
He added: "we believe they are the leading agency in education in the country, so their corporation is highly solicited. We want them to be part of the process."
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