By Saio Marrah
The Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary School Education, Dr. David Moinina Sengeh has explained at the weekly government press briefing that the recently released results of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), were the first ever to be released before the start of the new academic year.
Dr. Sengeh said the development will bring huge reduction in the pregnancy rate amongst school girls. “This is the first time in many people’s memory that the BECE results and the NPSE results came out on time and at schools before the reopening of schools” he said.
He also pointed out the impact: “The impact of this is that we are used to people saying after BECE answer ‘belleh’ (pregnancy). Now the impact for BECE answer belleh is if you are a 16, 17, 18 or 19 year old girl, or boy who is at home for three months or everybody had gone to school, your parents are working you get curious about your body”.
He said teenage pregnancy was bound to decrease significantly because of the new strategies to get the results out before classes resume.
According to him, one of the reasons Sierra Leonean candidates have not been doing well in public exams especially the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) is because the candidates always waste two terms in the three years. He said for this, kids were never able to complete syllabuses, and yet people always doubted the massive failure in the exams.
He said for this reason his team is working to develop a basic Senior Secondary School curriculum frame work this year. The minister also pointed out the immense benefits of the new technology applied this time in accessing the results by SMS on cell phone.
He said for this year, 131,822 candidates passed the exams with a pass rate of 85.37 percent, which he said is the highest in the country.
This he said was as a result of the government’s commitment to the Free Quality Education that encompasses no fees, the free distribution of core textbooks and radio teaching programmes .
The minister encouraged parents to call 8060 toll free to report corrupt practices, and for school kids to send sms to 847 to have access to dictionary.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online (03/09/21)
