By Septimus Senessie in Kono.
The National Kono Students’ Union (KONSU) have launched their 2013 summer school lessons at the Koidu City hall, Kono district.
The guest speaker of the occasion, Ambassador John Yambasu who donated US$ 10,000 as his support to the Summer School project praised KONSU for their “courage amid their own academic struggles” to leave their holiday lectures to assist their brothers and sisters. He said there was nothing worth sacrificing for on earth than education citing himself as an example. He said that when he was going to school he was forced by poverty to reject his father’s name (Senessie) to adopt his uncle’s name, Yambasu which he now carried as his surname.
He maintained that the change of name came after his parents were unable to pay his primary school fees and there was a policy in primary schools that if three children of the same surname were in the same school, they would automatically be awarded a scholarship. “Knowing that there were two Yambasus already in the school, I had to change my surname to Yambasu to benefit from the scheme,” he explained.
Ambassador Yambasu said that the only way out of poverty was through education, and stressed on the importance of girl child education.
The president of KONSU, Prince Lamin Boima told education stakeholders in the district that their summer classes would be held in every one of the fourteen chiefdom headquarter towns with a secondary school. He said that KONSU students from all colleges, polytechnics and universities throughout the country would converge in Kono district to conduct the lessons.
He also said that some of his members would be sent to do voluntary services in the district hospitals and other administrative offices in the district. He warned his male colleagues against the sexual exploitation of girls during the classes.
The principal of the Ahmadiyya Secondary School in Tombudu who represented the Council of Principles, Kono, appealed to KONSU to get to the suburbs of the district on completion of their causes to help their with teaching otherwise, he warned, “the quality of education will drastically drop”. Yillah M. Koroma lamented over the lack of trained and qualified teachers to handle subject areas especially the sciences.
He said the whole district lacked a single science laboratory referring to the one at the Koidu Secondary School meant for the growing number of students in the district as “an empty building with no facilities inside to conduct experiments.”
He therefore appealed to Ambassador Yambasu to do his best as a scientist himself, to establish the facilities in the district for pupils pursuing the sciences “otherwise in the next ten to fifteen years, the entire district will not boast of single scientist”.
Earlier, the chairman of the occasion, Mohamed Bangapoma Bangura warmed the KONSU students against exploiting the girls during the lesson. Bangura, who works for the Office of National Security, also told them to see education as the only way out of poverty and starvation.
He warned them against being a party to the “divide and rule policy” of their political heads in the district who he said had succeeded in dividing the whole district into camps and factions which was impacting on the overall development of Kono.
© Politico 30/07/13
