By Saio Marrah
The Parliament of Sierra Leone is set to summon the Minister of Basic and Senior School Education (MBSSE), Dr. Moinina David Sengeh, to explain the mass failure in the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSE) 2020.
Suggestions by lawmakers for to demand for an explanation from Dr. Sengeh came after a Member of Parliament noted that no candidate in the entire Kono District had a university entry requirement.
The observation was made on Monday 23rd November, 2020, during ongoing debate on the 2021 budget in the House of parliament.
Opposition All people’s Congress lawmaker, Ibrahim Ben Karbgo of Constituency 034, floated the idea of summoning the minister. His motion was seconded by the Leader of the National Grand Coalition (NGC), Dr Kandeh Kolleh Yumkella of Constituency 068. The Speaker of the House, Dr. Abass Bundu, then confirmed the proposal, asking the rest of the parliamentarians to do further research about the performance in their various constituencies ahead of the planned summoning of the minister,
Education, with emphasis on quality, is the flagship program of the Bio administration, which was a major campaign promise of President Julius Maada Bio. As a result, the education docket was allocated the largest share of the national budget in the last two years 2019-2020 (21percent and 22percent, respectively), which is expected to remain at 22percent in 2021.
The Free Quality Education (FQE), as the scheme is called, was deigned on three key objectives: to ensure access, quality and sustainability.
However, two years since it was launched, critics say the results are not showing any form of encouragement.
Hon. Paul Saa Sam of Constituency 025 in the Kono district blamed the poor performance of students in the exam on the lack of commitment and unprofessionalism of teachers, which he said has resulted into only nine candidates in the whole district getting five credits.
“The government is striving to see that education has a better setting, but the problem of this educational system is the teachers; some of us we were taught by teachers who had TC [Teachers’ Certificate] and some of them even without qualifications, but they taught with passion. They had passion for the job and you see the amount of people they produced,” he said.
He went on: “But today, we have people coming from the universities with university degrees, they are going to these schools, they are teaching, but we still have problem with education. Why?”
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