By Kemo Cham
The Member of Parliament for Constituency 025 in Kono District, Paul Saa Sam, has warned that the current amount paid as school fee subsidy by government for pre-primary and primary school pupils risk undermining the Free Quality Education (FQE) program.
Hon. Sam said the amount received by some schools is too little to make any difference, thereby affecting the learning process, especially for community schools.
“The flagship program of the President is the Free Quality Education and the foundation for education is the pre-primary and primary school. If you don’t get it right at that level you will miss it all,” he said.
The government of Sierra Leone pays Le10, 000 per child for pupils in pre-primary and primary school. Students in Junior Secondary get Le50, 000 each as subsidy while those in Senior Secondary School receive Le60, 000 each.
Sam said the amount (for pre-primary and primary school) is not enough to take care of the cost of running some of the schools, including payment of salaries for unapproved teachers.
“In most of these schools, many of the teachers are not approved by government and they use these subsidies to pay the teachers,” the MP said in an interview with Politico.
Sam, a Coalition for Change (C4C) MP, had earlier made the call on the first day of debate by Members on the Presidential address during the State Opening of Parliament earlier in the month. He said he had repeatedly made the call on two previous occasions: first after the maiden speech of President Julius Maada Bio in Parliament in 2018 and again during the debate on the 2019 budget.
The government’s FQE program, a fulfilment of a campaign promise by President Bio, seeks to ensure that every child gets at least a primary and secondary school education. Under the scheme, the government is providing free tuition and teaching and learning materials.
But the introduction of the scheme last September has been met with a lot of challenges. Firstly it has shut up enrolment numbers as parents have sought to take advantage of the opportunity. This increased interest has overwhelmed many school authorities who have been struggling to meet demand for space.
In far flung parts of the country, many schools are not approved and therefore can’t benefit from government support under the scheme.
Sam, a former teacher himself, said many schools in his constituency are affected by this situation. He said many of them have been forced to shut down because the administrations have not been able to run them with the meager resources they have.
According to him, out of a total of 56 schools in his constituency, only five were approved, meaning that only these five schools receive subsidy, albeit insufficient.
The MP said even though some among the remaining 51 schools have recently been approved, they were yet to receive their subsidies, noting that this is causing problem for the authorities in these schools as parents have decided not to pay the small amount of fees they were used to paying.
The Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education says the current fee subsidies paid are an improvement from what was paid before the launch of the FQE.
Brima Michael Turay, a spokesman for the ministry, said before now the subsidy paid per child in pre-primary and primary school was Le5000.
“This has been the case for many years before it was increased in September following the launch of the FQE policy,” he said.
“That is 100 percent increment. The MP more than anybody else knows that this is an improvement,” Turay added in a telephone interview.
Besides the inadequacy of the subsidies, delay in their payment is another major concern for those who are qualified.
Another concern is the delay in approval for government support. Only government schools and government assisted schools are entitled to benefit from the FQE program and these are the only ones that receive subsidies.
The introduction of the policy therefore saw an outpouring of application for government approval. According to the education ministry, over 3000 schools have been approved since last September.
Reports indicate that tens of hundreds more schools await approval.
Mr Turay said it doesn’t take more than 60 days for schools to get their subsidies after approval, noting that if there is any delay, it must be that the affected school received approval after the payment of subsidy.
Payment of subsidies is done by term.
Turay said any school which up to this point hasn’t received their subsidy can only get it during the next payment round, the beginning of the academic year (2019/2020).
© 2019 Politico Online
