By Mabinty M. Kamara
The Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education MBSSE has warned pupils especially those in terminal classes for public examinations to quit the habit of abandoning their regular school sessions before they take the examinations.
“The Ministry wishes it to be known that it will commence regular surveillance of schools to ensure that pupils who are supposed to be in school attend classes regularly or face very stringent disciplinary measures, including withdrawal of candidature,” a statement from the Ministry reads.
According to the statement, most candidates of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and the West Africa Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) abandon regular school lessons for private lessons as soon as the necessary entry processes for the different examinations are completed, with the excuse that teachers do not concentrate on them anymore.
This self-withdrawal of candidates from school according to the statement has a negative effect on the performance of candidates in the examination and leads to mass failure or examination malpractices.
It therefore urges parents and guardians to encourage their children to attend regular schools until they take their examinations, and in the case of the candidates of the National Primary School examination until the end of the academic year as classes continue even after the examination.
The president of the Sierra Leone Teachers’ Union, Mohamed Sallieu Bah told Politico that they were in full support of the ministry’s actions as they were already fed up with pupils abandoning school as public examinations approach. This attitude, he said, was common with those who go to repeat WASSCE.
Bah went on to say that the situation had worsened in the last couple of years of the free education because, he said, before now they used to pay to reseat the examination so they took it more seriously.
“Both school authorities and teachers are fed up with this attitude of pupils”, he said, adding: “they will start going to school but once they complete the WASSCE entry they no longer come to school”.
Bah continued: “The teachers are going to classes but the pupils do not show up only one third of them and it’s not isolated to my school, its everywhere. And government should stop the issue of these repeaters because they become visitors and not regular learners. They are just wasting government money. So they should be left to take the private WASSCE,” he said.
Politico challenged him with the allegation that it’s the very teachers that run those extra classes outside of the schools hence discouraging the pupils from coming to the school because the tutors pay more attention to those extra classes than the school work for which they are paid. Bah said teachers were not difficult to deal with. He said since they are on salary, failing to do what they’re paid for would lead the suspension of their salaries. He called on the government to also regulate extra classes as they seriously undermine the school system.
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