Shut Down Those Schools!
Sierra Leone is now witnessing a mushrooming of schools many of which do not meet the parameters to exist as schools. These schools lack the necessary facilities that foster effective learning such as laboratories, decent buildings, recreation ground, trained and qualified teachers among other lapses.
How such mushroom schools, some of which occupy rented buildings, came to be approved is a mystery that only the Minister of Education, Science and Technology (MEST), Minkailu Bah can unravel. What is more interesting is the fact that some of these apparently unserious schools bear very serious names; if they are not international academies, then they are colleges.
Some of these proliferating schools have very unfriendly learning environments as they are sometimes located very close to noisy business centers; they are not fenced neither have proper toilet system nor adequate furniture for the pupils. These laughable schools are more predominant in the remote areas of the provinces where some people will just erect a mud hut with thatch roof and declare it as an international college with a large number of untrained and unqualified teachers many of whom are branded as Arabic teachers who have little or no academic qualification but, sometimes, receiving fatter salaries than even the trained and qualified teachers. Some of these mushroom schools claim exorbitant subsidies via inflated rolls.
And the Education Ministry is very much aware of the existence of such schools that do not fulfill the requirements of a school yet little action is taken against them. What I have observed is that many of these evidently illegal schools are created with the main objective of claiming fat subsidies which usually end up in the pockets of the school authorities while the schools continue to exist in very appalling conditions.
If we are serious about our much-talked-about quality education, then such illicit schools should not be allowed to continue existing and polluting our educational system. I strongly believe that the learning environment has much impact on the academic development of the child. It is not the quantity of schools that matters but the quality. Therefore, Minkailu Bah must try to close down these mushrooming illegal schools in the best interest of quality education.
By Joseph Milton Lebbie
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juma kumba
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The answer lies in the old adage – when the authorities are failing the electorate introduce introduce cheap gimmicks. Cheap alcohol is already here to intoxicate the minds to diver their attentions from their failures. Now faced with an army of idle and hopeless young lives they create a mirage called education, of which it is pseudo qualification. It is a none qualification sold as standard but which will infect the already bankrupt system with mediocre minds. How can an administration be so deliberate in its actions to destroy a whole generation to this extent. Is there no depth that we will sink to that will be the bottom?
10th August 2015