By Hajaratu Kalokoh
When President Julius Maada Bio launched his New Direction Manifesto in 2017, his flagship program was the Free Quality Education (FQE). The program is premised on the “decaying” standard of education in Sierra Leone. The promise of fixing that “decay” was what rallied hundreds of thousands of Sierra Leoneans to back him and subsequently vote him as President.
Following his win, President Bio set aside 21% of government’s budget to invest in education, the highest budgetary allocation ever to the sector. And in September 2018, the FQE was officially launched paving way for easy access to education for more than one million children in the country.
As part of the FQE package parents don’t have to pay tuition fees for their children from primary to senior secondary schools. The package also includes the payment of fees for all public examinations. In addition to this, schools are supposed to be supplied with textbooks for the children, furniture and other learning aid materials.
The government said it hopes to train and recruit at least 5000 teachers over the next five years as part of efforts to deal with the explosion in enrollment.
This is the FQE program laid bare.
A referendum on the program?
In September, which is less than three weeks from now, the FQE will be a year old. Eleven months since its launch, there have been some successes. Government embraced the roll out of this program at full-scale. But there have also been challenges.
There is no agreement about when does one start assessing a government program. Is a year too early, considering this is about education and all the impact will not be visible in just a year? Or is a year long enough to start counting success stories?
In Juba, a community located in the west end of Freetown, there are only two schools that benefit from the FQE: the Juba Army Municipal School and Stella Maris Primary School. The first is a government owned school, whilst the latter is a government assisted school.
In a community like Juba, the immediate effect of the FQE was the high enrollment rate. Head Teacher of the Infant Section (Nursery 1 to Class 3) of the Juba Army Municipal School, Isatu Fofanah said that as much as this is good for education in the community, it has also put a strain on the meager resources available.
The school’s number one challenge is accommodation. Ms Fofanah said that because of lack enough chairs, it’s always a competition among the pupils who would rush to their classes after the daily morning Assembly to get a seat. She said in the process some of the kids get hurt.
The school was founded in 1967 and, according to the teachers, there has been no substantial rehabilitation done on it. And the implication of this is quite obvious in the dilapidated and poorly ventilated structures that serve as classroom blocks.
There are a total five blocks, consisting of a total nine classrooms. The teachers say when it rains the roofs leak. Two of the buildings have been totally abandoned because the severity of their dilapidated condition.
With high enrollment comes pressure on the resources government supplies the schools. The Juba Army Municipal School, for instance, needs far more than the number of core text books they were supplied. The school has 150 pupils in the whole of class 3 and the government only supplied 85 pieces of books for each core subject – math, science, social studies and English Language.
Brima Michael Turay, Deputy Director and Public Relation Officer in the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education said these challenges are not new. He told Politico that the ministry has been grappling with them for several years.
“We recognize the fact that there are schools that are congested, that there are schools that do not have proper wash facilities, which is water, sanitation and hygiene, and that is why government is focusing primarily in making sure that we identify those schools so that whenever we are going to provide any support, it will be a priority for us to look at those schools,” Turay said in an interview.
However, the need to solve the congestion problem in areas like Juba is urgent.
Samuel Lewis, Deputy Head Teacher of the Juba Army Municipal Primary School, said a single shift system will be the ideal solution to get the best out of the pupils.
Currently, pupils in classes 4 and 5 attend lessons in the afternoon shift. Lewis said because of this, these pupils engage in street trading in the morning hours. He said as a consequent, when they come to school they are always sleeping and hardly get what they taught.
“Having one shift will be a bonus because when all of them come in the morning their brains will be fresh, they will be able to absorb what they are taught and we will get the best of them,” he said.
Abdul Raheem Conteh, a Class Five teacher at the school, added: “There is no subsidy for teachers. Even when teachers upgrade their education and [are] promoted to senior teachers or head teachers, they are still having the same salary. This discourages other teachers.”
Across the street from Juba Municipal is Stella Maris Primary School, a Catholic owned school which receives assistance from the government, hence it falls under the category of government assisted schools.
Stella Maris’ problems are no different from their neighbors: Shortage of furniture, inadequate toilet facilities, and a horde of teachers whose names are not on the government payroll.
Marina Ngaujah, a Class Five teacher at the Catholic school, said there are many dedicated teachers who have taught for many years without getting their names on the pay roll.
“The FQE initiative is good because there are some parents who have not been able to afford to send their children to school but are now able to so,” she said.
She added: "We have teachers about six who are not on salary for the past six to seven years and they are working very hard. Every day they come to work [and] at the end of the month they do not have anything and we do not have anything to give them. So it is really not easy for them."
Head teacher Lucy Bangali said that as a government assisted school, pupils of Stella Maris have not been paying school fees even prior to the FQE. She said they have been able to raise some funds through school extra-curricular activities, like sporting events and Thanks Giving ceremonies.
“If we have activities like sports and Thanksgiving, we discuss it with the parents during CTA [Community Teachers Association) meetings. If they subscribe to it, we proceed with the activity,” she said.
According to Turay they have conducted annual school census and the data is being put together. This data will enable them to identify schools encountering those challenges and then they would work with their partners to provide some of these things that are lacking in the schools.
Turay further explained that the Teaching Service Trade Group Negotiating Council has been reconstituted, noting that this Council is the mandated body that negotiates on behalf of teachers.
The MoBES spokesman, Turay, said negotiation are going on behind the scene they involve Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance, Sierra Leone Teachers Union, Labor and other stakeholder in Education
Many children have benefited from this initiative because there has been an increase in number of children accessing school since it has been launched.
However these challenges surrounding the free quality education need immediate address to achieve a more effective and sustainable free quality education for the purpose it was launched. The Juba Army Municipal and Stella Maris School may not be the only victims to these challenges.
© 2019 Politico Online
