By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
The Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education has said they will need Le44 billion to pay for the West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in 2020. The money will cater for 172,000 pupils in all public schools in the country.
The Ministry of Education made the announcement during the presentation of their budget for 2020. However, this money could increase drastically after the Ministry of Finance instructed them to factor in pupils who will be writing the exams in private schools.
The Deputy Financial Secretary at the Ministry of Finance, Mathew Dingie said government pays examination fee for every pupil for all three public exams in the country; NPSE, BECE and WASSCE.
“We want to guide Education [Ministry] to make their budget comprehensive, because as far as it stands government pays for all public exams for all public and private schools for the NPSE, BECE and WASSCE. So where normally the discrepancy happens is when Education only submits for the public schools but when WAEC send to us their claim, they take into consideration all schools. That is what we pay for and that brings some difference when we try to do the accounting,” Dingie told journalists after the presentation.
“So, for now until a policy is taken on whether government should continue paying for private school or not let us budget for everything,” he added
The WASSCE examination fee for a pupil is Le 270,000. Some 115,000 of the 172,000 pupils who sat in the last exams will be rewriting them, after the massive failure in the WASSCE exams this year.
National Projects Coordinator, Free Quality Education, Amara Sowa told Politico after the presentation that the only reason they did not factor private schools in was because their major focus in drawing their plans was on public schools.
“The number we gave are all from public schools. Normally we don’t recommend the payment of fees for private schools,” Sowa said.
But Sowa said they will make the necessary addition as requested by the Ministry of Finance.
This is not the only addition that will be made to the Education budget. According to their presentation, the Education ministry will need 500% more than the Le162 billion budget cap they were giving for the year under discussion. The gap between their budget cap and their actual budget is a difference of Le 527 billion.
However, this difference can be narrowed down considering most of what they included in their budget are not moneys that they will be getting. Some of the money will go to the local councils since some education functions have been devolved as part of the local council devolution process.
One of the figures that raised their budget drastically is the payment of arrears to the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC). Education authorities say the government of Sierra Leone has not been paying subscription for almost a decade. That debt accumulated to US$12 million.
Dingie said the Ministry of Education must work on a payment plan, because government cannot afford to pay all the money at a go.
“They budgeted for all that US$12 million to be paid at a go and we know that is not possible. So, we have advised them to go and develop a payment plan wherein we can pay over the next three to four years. Hence, we pay, and we continue to pay the current subscription. WAEC will be ok with that. But we don’t want to commit to pay all the money in one year for arrears that have accumulated over the last five to six years.”
Education is the flagship program of the current government. Last year the sector was given up to 21% of the budget, more than any other sector. Dingie hinted that this year the sector might get around the same amount after some extra costs have been trimmed from their current projections.
He said on a whole the budget is comprehensive enough.
“So far, we are satisfied with the submission they made today, it is very detailed. They explained all the programs they have in the Free Quality Education and especially the other big programs that they undertake. We will look at them and see whether they are ok,” Dingie said.
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