Politico Staff Writer
The people of the southern district of Pujehun have launched a 100 billion Leone Education Trust Fund last weekend to tackle a downward trend in educational outcomes in the district.
Basic and Senior Secondary Education minister David Sengeh who hails from that district told Politico: “In Pujehun it happens that for five years running pupils had zero pass rate for university… it this narrative that they are trying to change. Sengeh said it took ‘some interventions in the area of summer schools for some pupils to get university requirements from last year’s West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations. He said the collapse of education in Pujehun district also be blamed on the prevailing challenge of teenage pregnancy.
He said the retreat provided an opportunity for citizens to participate in the “National Education Sector Plan” and that it was also a good idea for the people to have the opportunity to make a commitment on what role they would play to transform their education system.
District stakeholders at the three-day retreat agreed on eight key points including that the establishment of the trust fund to complement the efforts of the government should be completed by June 2022 with a projected starting point of 500 million Leones.
Lansana Rogers, Deputy Director, Sierra Leone Teaching Service Commission attached to Pujehun also told Politico that, some effort has been made to improve results from public exams and that in 2021, 49 pupils were able to get university requirements from the district.
Highlighting some of the challenges in the sector, Rogers mentioned the limited number of approved teachers, the need for additional infrastructure, poor monitoring of the learning environment, and sexual abuse of young girls in the district. Rogers said the Free Quality Education opened the way for a lot of people to send their children to school which has resulted in overcrowding in schools. “The schools are overcrowded, so, there is every need for us to have more structures. A lot of schools have now been approved but there is also a need for us to have teachers for every one of the district’s 292 primaries, 28 junior and 11 Senior Secondary Schools.
Addressing the forum, the Chairman of the Pujehun District Council Sheik Sidie Sowa commended the education minister for working collaboratively with his council on education.
The Minister of Planning and Economic Development Dr. Francis Kai-Kai, himself a native of the district told Politico that “For the last two decades we have seen attrition in the educational standards. We have seen a downward trend in our district especially in the field of education and education is the bedrock of development anywhere, and to me, this appeared like a clarion call for us to do something.”
He said the effect of the civil war and the drop in quality teaching are major challenges to the education sector as the district was no more attractive to quality teachers. According to him, poverty on the side of the parents to pay for extra classes for their children was also undermining improvement in the sector.
Dr. Kai-Kai, said he was concerned about the sustainability of the development trajectory with the launch of the Trust Fund and urged all stakeholders of Pujehun to keep that in mind.
By the end of the retreat, the fund was just over 400 million Leones strong with many of those who attended the program promising to work hard to meet the shortfall.
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