SS4 Not the Solution

The introduction of Senior Secondary School Level 4 (SSS4) has been accompanied by mass resentment among school pupils in Sierra Leone. Professor Gbamanja Commission recommended one extra year to the already SSS3 class as a way of solving the problem of mass failure in especially public examinations, particularly the WASCE.

But this press believes that the introduction of the SSS4 class cannot solve the problem of mass failure if other related problems are not properly addressed.

We hold that the problems plaguing our educational sector must be addressed in entirety.

It is no secret that our educational sector is currently suffering from a chain of problems that must be addressed whollistically; the extension of the SSS4 cannot single-handedly solve the problems.

We have observed that the primary sector of our educational system, which serves as the foundation, has been starving since the inception, of subsidies payment. This is because school subsidies are not paid on time and are paid very irregularly compelling head teachers to in-debt themselves just to keep their schools running.

Besides, most head teachers, especially those in small schools, have been complaining perpetually that the subsidies are woefully insufficient to run their schools effectively. If the primary sector which lays the foundation for quality education is not well catered for, the situation will have a spill over effect that will disturb secondary and tertiary education.

Moreover, this nation is now suffering an acute shortage of qualified and competent teachers many of whom have escaped the dismal conditions of service in the classroom. The ugly situation has been compounded by the mass non-recruitment and non-approval of teachers over the year, a situation that has contributed immensely to the pauperization of teachers many of whom have resorted to grade-selling to survive the system.

Now that grade-selling has become a common practice in many secondary schools especially, many pupils no longer study but spend their time riding Okada and engaging in other commercial activities to just to raise money to buy grades from starving teachers.

This medium is also aware that there is a proliferation of schools many of which do not meet the required standards to exist as schools. We are also not well prepared for the SSS4 class due to lack of adequate accommodation. Moreover, many schools now offer sciences without equipped laboratories.

In view of the foregoing lapses and a multiple of others, we believe the SSS4 cannot solve the problem of mass failure until most of the other problems, if not all, are adequately addressed, otherwise, the SSS4 will just end up worsening the already bad academic situation.

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