EDUCATION: High Cost on Low Out-put
How Effective will the 6-3-4-4 system of education be?
The Sierra Leone government, in its Agenda for Prosperity document stated that it has made huge successes in its first five years in office under the Agenda for Change noting among other things that: “Capital investments including the building of hundreds of schools across the country; recurrent investments have improved teacher’s salaries and provided teaching and learning materials. Educational participation (e.g. enrolment rates) and attainment (e.g. literacy rates) have improved, especially for girls”.
But for most Sierra Leoneans, the government has failed to make an impact in the educational system despite placing it as one of its five areas of interest in the Agenda for Change.
“There is no conviction that we as a nation succeeded in making gains in the educational system. Results from public examinations continue to be poor, facilities unavailable and even those teachers, who have decided to stay, are not paid on time. How can we then say we succeeded as a nation in the educational sector when teachers’ salaries are not competitive and forthcoming, and besides, results from national exams are disastrous,” John Dauda Sellu – a Lecturer at the Eastern Polytechnic in Kenema says.
After independence, Sierra Leone, due to its apparently unmatched track-record in education was rated as one of the success stories of new African states while Fourah Bay College – established in 1829, continued to make commendable strides in providing enviable quality education not only for Sierra Leoneans, but for other West Africans too. Sierra Leone became known as the ‘Athens of West Africa’ in recognition of its provision of quality education in the African continent.
However, education in the tiny West African state started dwindling especially after a major policy shift in 1994 that saw the introduction of the 6-3-3-4 System, which the then Tejan Kabbah led government, in an effort to give education a further boost, instituted a Free Education Policy in 1999 before embarking on an ambitious and laudable venture to provide education to an increased number of children.
In consonance with the September 2000 United Nations Millennium Summit which ‘challenged’189 countries of the world to provide basic education for all by 2015, the then government designed several policies to improve access to and quality of education in the country.
One such policy was the Education For All, Action Plan (EFA), under which the government undertook the task of providing national Primary Education, which includes the abolition of Primary school tuition fees and replaced it with a fee subsidy per pupil and the provision of teaching and learning materials.
The emergence of the Ernest Bai Koroma government in 2007 saw another major twist in the development of education in the country. Examination results; especially in core subjects were very poor to the extent that president Koroma had to set up a Commission of Enquiry known as the ‘Professor Gbamanja Commission’ with the mandate to look into the dismal performances of the country’s future leaders in public exams. The Commission submitted its findings to the government with several recommendations including an additional year to the 6-3-3-4 system; making it 6-3-4-4.
However, the school year 2013/14 being the first year of implementation of this new system, most stakeholders are pessimistic the innovation will be a success story.
“Before this time, we were overcrowded in less-ventilated classrooms; forced by school authorities to pay exorbitant school fees and extra charges; and taught by unqualified teachers. Adding a year to the school curriculum in my own view is a laudable idea but it should have started from the primary schools; let’s say 7-3-3-4 or an additional year in the college/university making it 6-3-3-5. That would have been better than the 6-3-4-4 system,” Ibrahim Kamara, an SSS IV pupil of the Government Independence Memorial Secondary School says.
According to a recent survey done by the Campaign for Good Governance (CGG), it is not uncommon to see pupils being taught by unqualified teachers. The report says pupils are usually “sardined” in classrooms and in some areas, took classes under trees and huts.
The 6-3-4-4 system has started but many believe it will end up fruitlessly like the 6-3-3-4. Since the latter came into existence, circumstantial evidences have revealed that great successes have been made on enrolment of pupils as well as infrastructure but quality education is diminishing. Speaking and writing the English language is becoming worrisome as majority of pupils/students find it very difficult to construct a single paragraph without making series of mistakes.
Salary increases were made to motivate and encourage the retention of qualified teachers in the profession but those increments were not enough incentive to retain them neither cut down the many teachers/lecturers sit-down strikes every year – most times for better and befitting remuneration packages.
“Since we cannot hold on to the good teachers/lecturers who have always been searching for greener pastures, we had to resort to volunteers; most of whom are untrained and unqualified but at the same time love the profession. We encouraged them to enrol into distant learning programs as well as help them further their education so that they can be loyal to us but the Ministry thinks otherwise. The 6-3-4-4- is here and there are not enough classrooms and teachers to accommodate the SSS IV pupils; so what do we do now?” a Senior Secondary School Principal asked.
With the teacher-pupil ratio frightening high on the average, there are still marked disparities in the enjoyment of quality education between geographical regions, as well as between males and females. A grave but real fact is that some parents because they cannot afford to retain their children remove them from schools; while others do not send theirs due to their impecunious state to meet the relatively high costs or demands of the school authorities.
Taking cognisance of the sky-rocketing increase in the prices of uniforms and books; and the increasingly high school charges and cost of maintaining a child in school; especially in big towns like Freetown, it is safe to conclude that education is gradually becoming a luxury for poor parents. The situation becomes more unbearable when one considers the high unemployment rate and the low household income in the country. Even in the capital city-Freetown, most school authorities levy unreasonably high extra and illegal school charges on pupils, risking very little or no punishment at all from the Ministry of Education Science and Technology.
“We are told that our daughters should not pay school fees on to JSS III but what we are paying for now is more than the Seventy-Five Thousand Leones including CTA fees that we should have been paying. We are asked to contribute to building and other irrelevant funds; pay CTA and other bogus fees. We are also asked to pay school fees for our daughters to be refunded later but the refunds, either took ages to happen or do not happen at all. How do they expect us to send our children to school,” Zainab Deen Sie, a parent enquired.
Despite critical challenges that the Education Sector is bedevilled with (ineptitude, low standard of teaching and learning environment, institutionalized corruption, weak monitoring and evaluation systems, and the like), the Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Dr Minkailu Bah is optimistic the government is on the right footing but that school administrators are the detractors.
“The school administrators are making things worse for the ministry. They admit children without the proper grades, employed the services of unqualified teachers and indulge in ‘ghost teachers’ syndicate to dupe the government. This is unfair, that’s why we are putting things together to remedy some of these challenges and put the records straight,” Dr Bah says.
Dr Samuel Bangura holds a Masters of Arts in Education Degree. He is of the conviction that the 6-3-4-4 system is just a farce, which no matter what will be of no good to the country.
“I think what we should do is to ensure that the teaching field become as lucrative and competitive as those so called ‘hot jobs’. We then try to build the foundation of the children at primary level and ensure that we introduce a system wherein teachers speak English at all times to the children at school. By the time, they are ready for the NPSC, I’m sure they would have got the basics to go into secondary schools,” he says.
Meanwhile, several pupils currently in SSS IV nationwide could be deprived of taking next year’s West Africa Senior Schools Certificate Exams (WASSCE) because according to the Education Ministry, they failed the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) some three years back.
By Abubakarr Kamara
Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!
© 2013, https:. All rights reserved.
