By Politico staff writer
The Non-Formal Education Directorate (NFED) in the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education (MBSSE) is set to reintegrate six hundred (600) Out-of-School adolescent girls into the formal educational system by the next academic year which will commence in September this year.
According to the Director of Non-Formal Education Olive Musa, the scheme will target eleven communities covering four districts (Kambia, Koinadugu, Moyamba, and Pujehun). She said the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) will partner with MBSSE to access and identify the 600 Out-of-School Adolescent Girls with a preference for pregnant girls and lactating mothers in communities where eleven Community Learning Centres (CLC) are located to be reintegrated into former schools system in September 2022.
She said the stakeholders will soon visit the communities listed for girls to be identified and registered.
“Statistics revealed that currently, we have 9,000 of such cases in our operational areas throughout the country. With such a huge number of needy pupils, we can identify the pressing cases and enroll them in our community learning centres in the four districts mentioned earlier,” she said.
The Strategic Communications Analyst at MBSSE, Augustine Sankoh noted that the 600 Out-of-School adolescent girls are those at the school-going age that had dropped out of school due to pregnancy or being lactating mothers. He added that other girls who had never attempted to attend school but are within the school-going age will also be targeted.
He said the four Districts were selected based on the fact that they were noted to have the highest number of adolescent girls that are within the school-going age that is not attending school and also due to the available funds at the moment. He noted that the scheme is an ongoing process that will happen every year to reintegrate them into the normal school system.
Sankoh pointed out that the scheme will cover Free Quality Education which they will be paid for starting from Basic Education to Senior Secondary school level.
The mandate of the Non-Formal Education Directorate is to provide education for out-of-school illiterates, targeting children, adolescents, youth, and adults in Sierra Leone.
The directorate facilitates and supports communities with the establishment of Community Learning Centres at the Chiefdom level particularly in rural communities and hard-to-reach areas in the country.
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