President Koroma to replace education Minister
A cross section of educational authorities have made a clarion call on His Excellency the President Ernest Bai Koroma to replace the Education Minister, Dr Minkailu Bah (in photo)
Giving reasons for their clarion call during an extensive interview conducted by this medium, the agitated educational authorities described Minkailu Bah’s first tenure of office as an excellent failure evidenced by the multiple problems currently undermining quality education in this republic.
Minkailu Bah’s regime, they said, has been characterized by mass non-recruitment and non-approval of teachers, late payment of remuneration for WAEC examiners, late payment of school subsidies and a chain of other problems that keep tormenting the educational sector.
“Minkailu Bah’s retention will be an unwise decision and it will not go down well with us” they stressed, adding that the hundreds of volunteer teachers who have taught for several years without salaries will never forgive president Koroma if he decides to retain Minkailu.
By Joseph Milton Lebbie
Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!
© 2012, https:. All rights reserved.
Abu Bakarr Bangura
/
I am really not sure why there should be any debate whatsoever over the retention of Dr Minkailu Bah if his tenure at the Ministry of Education has turned out to be such a disaster.
22nd December 2012I mean to have someone in such a position of authority who is not only despised by his staff but is widely loathed teaching community really beggars belief.
From what I have been told FBC has been closed since August 2012 due to a multitude of reasons and this is happening under Mr Bah’s watch.
Surely he should have found a way around getting these issues resolved instead of allowing this crisis to continue to the detriment of all the students and the lecturers who need to get along with their work.
Volunteer teachers going without pay for months and even years and ghost teachers still on school payrolls clearly demonstrate that Mr Bah has not got a handle on what he was appointed to do.
The ultimate responsibility of ensuring that there are no ghost teachers on school payroll lies with the education ministry and Mr Bah has been running it for five solid years without any improvements.
The head teachers and school principals should be made accountable, audited and arrested or prosecuted if found to be having on their school payrolls names of individuals that are not working in these schools. For ghost teachers to still exist on school payrolls is a clear indication the system still has a long way to go and has not improved a bit.
Five years after Mr Bah was appointed as minister the schools are still overcrowded with there being junior and senior secondary schools within the same school. I ask myself what is it if anything that the children learn on a daily basis if they only spending in school less than half the time they are supposed to be spending in school.
If Mr Minkailu Bah has turned out to be this incompetent and proven to be so unpopular with his staff and simply cannot come up with or implement any constructive strategies to develop and improve the education system in Sierra Leone, then the time to send him to pasture is long overdue.
If President Koroma were to appoint this man as education minister then President Koroma would have clearly demonstrated that he does not value education and that his ‘’Covenant’’ with the youth is nothing but lip service.
To ensure the smooth and efficient running of any organisation only competent and robust individuals should be appointed to posts and loyalty or friendship should never be part of the selection criteria.