Dr Minkailu Bah, Education Minister
By Mohamed T. Massaquoi
School principals in Pujehun Town in the southern district of Pujehun have accused government of neglecting education in the district.
The principals say they are losing almost all of their teachers because the ministry of education had failed to approve them.
Philip Mando, head of the Holy Rosary girls’ school, said the school had eight trained and qualified teachers, but were all not approved, despite several efforts.
“We have made several visits to the ministry with regards approval of teachers, but nothing has been done in addressing the situation. This is completely undermining girlchild education the government has been talking about,” Mando told Politico on Tuesday in an exclusive interview.
The school is the only girl school in the district and it combines both senior and junior schools.
Mando explained that for him to maintain some of the teachers, he was offering them Le250, 000 per month, but that was inadequate.
Mr Mando also said that since last month the ministry had approved only 27 teachers for both primary and secondary schools in the entire district.
He however said that the school had received school fees government had paid for pupils in the junior school.
Government earlier announced that it would pay two-year school fees for all schoolgoing pupils in the country, as a way of helping families recover from the devastating impacts of Ebola.
Foday Salu Massaquoi who is principal of St Paul’s Secondary school, which also combines both senior and junior levels, said he had not received even school fees for his senior school.
He explained that the ministry had last year refused to approve his teachers because the teachers’ certificates or results were not available at the time. But he said even though they had submitted the results, the teachers had still not been approved.
“Most teachers have abandoned the school for the fact that they have worked for complete one year without approval,” he added.
He said he had about six qualified teachers awaiting approval and five part-time teachers, all of whom he said he paid from school fees.
But the principal bemoaned that the failure of government to pay fees for the senior school was greatly affecting them, as the junior school fees were not enough for the teachers.
However, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Brima Michael Turay, told Politico that teachers’ approval had been halted by the outbreak of Ebola.
He said they had been approving teachers since 2013 until Ebola struck.
Meanwhile, Mr Turay said government had not approved certain teachers because they had submitted either fake or questionable results of their qualifications.
He explained that government had actually stopped approving teachers since 2006 when its international development partners like the World Bank group issued a moratorium to halt hiring teachers.
He explained that the development partners wanted to know the number of teachers in the country, as they had been spending huge amounts of money on them.
That, according Turay, led to the discovery of over 6, 000 ‘ghost’ teachers, whom he said salaries were sent for, but were nonexistent.
Regarding payment of school fees, Turay said they were encountering discrepancies in sending money to school accounts.
He added that they had started paying fees, “but most schools had private accounts instead of school accounts.”
He urged the Pujehun principals to go to the ministry in Freetown to address of their problems.
© Politico 14/05/15
