Inspector of Schools Calls for Attention on Education in Kono By Elias Bangura Sahr Patrick Fillie, Inspector of Schools in Kono District, on 24 July 2013 has called on the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on Education to see how best they can improve educational standards and educational institutions in Kono. He was speaking recently when the Committee visited the district. Among other issues, he mentioned the high incidences of teenage pregnancy among schoolgirls which he described as alarming and warned that unless something urgent is done soon, the situation could get worse. He maintained that to date, ninety-eight percent of culprits found impregnating school girls in the district have been schoolboys. He maintained that this is just one of the challenges facing girl-child education in the district. He added however, that one of the solutions to remedy this, would be the opening of senior secondary schools in all the 14 chiefdoms in the district instead of concentrating them in the major towns. But that is not all, rejoined Sahr Y. Momodu, Chairman, Head Teachers Council in Kono District. He said there are numerous teachers who are unpaid, he said, which is contributing to the deterioration of education in the district. “The majority of these teachers are paid by the community and sometimes when there is no pay they abandon the schools, and you can’t blame them because they also have to live. Besides there are quite a good number of schools in Kono which are unapproved by the government even though they have met the criteria set out by the ministry of education. We don’t know what the delay for their approval is.” Another reason for the drop in education in the district is mining, where majority of the laborers are teenage boys, boys who like the girls, are mostly from poor backgrounds. Mr. Sahr Patrick Fillie said another challenge for them is that the education office in Kono is grossly understaffed – three out of the four inspectors of schools were retired some months back without their knowledge. “These three went to the bank where they discovered that their salaries had stopped running and their services where no longer needed. The three of them are yet to be replaced,” he said. Chairman, Conference of Principals of Senior Secondary Schools, Alhaji M.S. Foday, said most parents are not taking the education of their children as a priority – they only do it because they see their neighbors’ kids making progress educationally. “We all know quality education is dropping, and this is due to the many voluntary teachers in the district, they have taken on other jobs because they have not been approved by the Ministry of Education. Yes, the attendance rate of students is good, but most of the teachers are volunteers. Another challenge is the late payment of subsidies. In fact, we have a lot of schools that have been left out in this subsidy issue.” Another absurd thing as revealed by them is the schools that have been constructed under the EFA/FTI fund – Kono District has five such schools: Lei Agricultural Secondary School, Soa Junior Secondary School, M’Baoma II Municipal Junior Secondary School, Keoyo Municipal Junior Secondary School, and Aladura Junior Secondary School in Koidu – all are up and running but none of them have been unapproved. “So what’s the point in having them built and leaving them unapproved? Another thing,” Mr. Fillie continued, “is the Sierra Leone Government grant-in-aid given to students in tertiary institutions. Kono has a quota of 50. After we have done all the interviews and send the recommended names to headquarters in Freetown, we have found out that not all of them are given the scholarships – so why say our quota is 50 when you know at the end of the day it is not that number that you are going to give to us?” The Education Committee in its observations said there is a lot that needs to be done – a lot; otherwise education is still a far fetched dream for the people of Kono. “All stakeholders of education should come on board and be serious about the issues that are affecting education, especially girl-child education, and resolve those issues very quickly,” said the Education Committee.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 10:39:36 +0000
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