By Prince J Musa in Kenema
The Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education (MBSSE) and the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) have warned schools proprietors, missions and managers against interfering in the administrative management of their schools.
The education authorities made the call during a joint meeting in Kenema District last Tuesday.
The concerns come as schools complain that proprietors or mission secretaries are using their influence to perform administrative functions in the school, including hiring and firing of personnel.
The Deputy Director of Education (DDE) in Kenema, John Amara Swarray, told the gathering held at the Education Office that this went against laid down regulations.
“Government policy on education is clear. No mission managers and proprietors should use their positions to create a negative impact on education,” he said.
The Kenema District coordinator of the Free Quality Education, Abdul Karim Vangahun, said: “We are here as education officers to explain some of the issues that are debarring the progress of education in the district, of which much fingers from the head teachers are pointing at the proprietors, managers and mission secretaries.’’
Vangahun later added that despite the schools been owned by the proprietors and missionaries, they had asked the government to run the schools in accordance with the education policies. He added that since government had been assisting with the running of the schools, it had pivotal role to regulate the management of the schools.
“But some mission managers and proprietors do undertake teacher transfers, promote teachers from one level to another, without consulting the ministry and TSC. This has created a whole lot of problems for the effective running of the schools,” he stressed.
The Deputy Director of the Teaching Service Commission in the district, Tamba Bockarie, said they would not tolerate school owners to meddle in the administrative functions of schools, noting that it’s a challenge that they had been grappling with.
In Sierra Leone, schools are categorized in to three: Government run, Government assisted, and Private schools.
Most schools that are government assisted are owned by religious organizations, called mission schools.
Abdul Sheriff Jalloh, who represented an Islamic mission, Badru Deen, said during the engagement that over the years they had been worried about accountability among school head teachers and principals.
“Some head teachers don’t recognize the proprietors of schools and are not accountable in the use of the subsidies throughout the academic year,” he said, adding: “we want the ministry to declare the position of proprietors and managers in the education system, since the subsidies given to the head teachers is not known by the proprietors.”
In response to the concern raised by Jalloh, the DDE warned the head of schools, saying: “anybody caught doing the wrong thing will have to face the brunt of the law.”
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