Roaming Pen: Should we accept the new education system? (Part 2)

In part one of the debate on whether or not to accept the new education system introduced by the government, the Roaming Pen critically looked into some of the immediate recommendations of the Professor Gbamanja Commission of Inquiry on education. (Photo: Abdul Karim Kabia (Fonti) – Roaming Pen)

The recommendations highlighted and analyzed in part one of this piece includes the modification of the 6-3-3-4 system of education, free and compulsory primary education, and establishment of teaching service commission.

In this part two, the Roaming Pen will concentrate on other immediate recommendations including the criminalization of the practice of irregular admission, banning of access courses, phasing out of the two shift system, reduction of the number of examination subjects, and the criminalization of the sale of school materials supplied by government.

Criminalization of the practice of irregular admission of pupils

The issue of irregular admission of pupils into secondary schools, especially JSS1 and SSS1, is an open secret and the need to address this cancerous anomaly is long overdue.

School authorities including principals and senior teachers are notorious for admitting pupils who do not meet admission criteria but willing to pay money to get them admitted. This is one of the major anomalies for the dwindling standards in the secondary school education system, as undeserved pupils are given more preference for admission at the detriment of deserving pupils and quality education.

Therefore, the criminalization of this practice is a step in the right direction, and school authorities involved in such criminal activities must be ready to face the music.

Banning of access courses in tertiary institutions

Access courses were established by tertiary institutions to cater for pupils who do not obtain the requirements of entering these institutions. The tertiary institutions prepare entry exams for these pupils and those who excelled in these exams are offered admission into a one year access course. After this one year course, pupils who perform well are accepted and enrolled as students to undertake various diploma and degree courses.

As per the recommendation of the Professor Gbamanja Commission of Inquiry, government has resolved to ban all access courses in tertiary institutions.

It is widely believed that the banning of access courses is aimed at motivating WASSCE pupils, as most of them exhibit laxity during the WASSCE with the hopes that they can gain admission into tertiary institutions whether they perform well or not at WASSCE exams.

In my view, the banning of access courses in these tertiary institutions is counterproductive, especially with the additional year in senior secondary school.

It is first and foremost disadvantageous to pupils who would have spent four years in senior secondary school and unfortunately cannot make it in the WASSCE exams. For those who will choose the option of retaking the WASSCE, an additional one year in school, making it a total of five years in senior school, is ruinous, especially when one is not even sure whether or not he/she can pass the exams for the second time. It is very frustrating and devastating for one to become a dropout after spending good five years in senior school in a country like Sierra Leone.

Out of experience, I will never agree with the notion that public examinations like BECE and WASSCE are the best ways of testing a pupil’s ability. There are hundreds if not thousands of brilliant pupils who never excel in public examinations due to obvious reasons. There is also no doubt that several people in Sierra Leone are proud owners of various degree and diploma certificates but never passed the WASSCE or ‘O’ Level public exams. These people are on record to have performed well in their respective fields of work. This was made possible with the existence of access courses. Most of these people would have been school dropouts had it not been for the access courses.

Therefore, I consider the abolition of access courses as an undertaking that will succeed in increasing the numbers of school dropouts, rather than motivating WASSCE pupils.

It would have been more laudable if the government’s decision was to strictly regulate the access course admission programme. Past academic records can be made a criterion for admission of pupils to the access courses, but a total ban to the programme is untenable.

Phasing out of the two shift system

The government has also accepted the recommendation for the phasing out of the two shift system. According to a government white paper, this would be effected within a period of three years.

It is believed that the two shift system is another major factor in the dying education standards in the country. With the two shift system, pupils spend less hours in school with the teaching time allocated to teachers very minimal. What knowledge can a teacher impact in pupils in only thirty minutes a day? Some teachers even use the limited teaching time allocated to them as a yardstick for organizing syndicate classes for the pupils.

But it is expected that with a one shift system, spanning from 8:30am to 2:30pm daily, with a 45 minutes lunch break, as proposed by the Commission, teachers will have sufficient time to deliver lectures to their pupils.

The importance of monitoring the regular and punctual attendance by teachers and pupils, during this one shift system, cannot be overemphasized, as it is an open secret that teachers and pupils go to school when and how they feel like.

Reduction of the number of examination subjects

BECE and WASSCE pupils are forced to read more subjects for their exams. Most of these subjects are not even relevant to the courses being offered by these pupils, with special reference to WASSCE pupils.

For Commercial pupils to be forced to choose Art subjects like history or literature for their WASSCE exams is burdensome and have no positive impact in the career of the pupils. But this happens simply because the school authorities only use this as a means of filling the nine subjects the pupils are obliged to take.

Therefore, the acceptance of the government to reduce the number of examination subjects for BECE and WASSCE from 9 to 7 subjects is very commendable.

What is however, unclear is the question of whether or not this reduction will affect the number of core subjects in these public examinations.

The core subjects for all pupils taking the BECE exams are Language Arts, Mathematics, Integrated Science and Social Studies, whilst the core subjects for all WASSCE pupils include Mathematics, English Language, and Biology/Health Science.

Are these core subjects going to be reduced in line with the reduction of the number of examination subjects?

Criminalization of the sale of school materials supplied by government

The sale of school teaching and learning materials supplied by government has been made a criminal offence – anyone caught selling these materials would be arrested and charged to court as hardcore criminal.

Irrespective of the fact that this is a laudable venture by the government, it would have been more creditable if this was extended to the unlawful printing and selling of pamphlets by teachers. Teachers do print half-baked pamphlets, which are mostly excerpts photocopied from textbooks, and force the pupils to buy them. Is that not a criminal offence?

It is therefore hoped that the government will also criminalize the sale of leaflets/pamphlets by school authorities. This extortion drive by teachers is very alarming and should no longer be tolerated, as some of them prints and sells more than four pamphlets in an academic year, and some even use the sale of these pamphlets as criteria to pass their subjects.

Criminals should be treated as criminals and ‘criminal teachers’ are no exception.

Abdul Karim Kabia (Fonti), Freetown

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