By Prince J Musa in Kenema
The National Commission for Basic Education has engaged over two hundred principals of Junior Secondary Schools from Kailahun and Kenema districts on placement admission for pupils who took the National Primary School Examination (NPSE) pupils.
The commission’s Executive Secretary Dr. Josephine Ladepo told heads of schools at the meeting held in Kenema that they wanted to ensure the decentralization of the admission of children who just sat to the exams.
”The minister of education wants to decentralize the placement exercise at district level and to reduce burden on parents for admission of their children’’, said Dr. Ladepo.
She maintained that placement is one aspect which the ministry has been doing in Freetown by helping parents get their children who have scored the government’s passing grade of 230 admitted into junior secondary school. She said students might have made multiple choices in order of preference but had fallen short of achieving the marks their top choice schools have instituted as criteria for admission. She said the ministry is now using a decentralized placement system together with the school authorities in the provinces in getting them enrolled in other schools closer to home and accessible.
While acknowledging the innovative ideas of the minister Dr. David M. Sengeh in improving the quality of education in the country, she urged the principals present at the engagement to inform their colleagues about the new admission system being put in place.
Dr. Ladepo maintained that the ministry is using a the agro-reading method in ensuring that the old system of admission in schools is changed and new data introduced that will be able to determine the number of classrooms and children that can be accommodated in a particular school.
Deputy Director of Education for Kenema district, John Amara Swarray referred to the placement system as a significant aspect which helps both parents and the ministry in the education sector.
He said the decentralization of the placement was timely because it will reduce some of the challenges parents have been encountering, adding that another significant part of this placement is that it may stop some private schools from admitting pupil’s into junior secondary schools even though the child did not pass the NPSE, all in the name of collecting money.
Mr. Swarray encouraged the heads of schools to consider that aspect as means of addressing some of the pressures they face from the parents during interviewing of NPSE candidates going into junior secondary schooling, saying that ’’some teachers do back door admission unknown to the principal and that creates a lot of challenges to the administration’’.
The District Coordinator Free Quality Education Kenema, Abdul Vangahun thanked the ministry for the new development, noting that the quality of education lies in the hands of the school administrators.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online (18/08/21)
