By Kemo Cham
“It is better to teach someone how to fish than to give them fish every day,” declares James R. S. Kamara, to a rousing applause from fellow villagers of Maborie.
When residents of this predominantly agrarian community became fed up with their children traveling long distance to school, they decided to have their own. But with the competition for the meager resources, they realized it would take long, if not impossible, for government to build them a school, and so they decided to do it themselves.
About a decade later, the structure comprising a classroom block made of mud and sticks began crumbling. Again, the people of Maborie didn’t wait for government. They took it upon themselves to build a new classroom block. But the new structure, work on which began in 2018, is incomplete and they now need help to complete it.
Today, they have an opportunity to ask for all the help they need, thanks to a community-led initiative called SABI [Strengthening Accountability, Building Inclusion].
SABI is a UK-funded project which seeks to improve service delivery to the local population. With presence in every part of the country’s 16 district, the program seeks to increase awareness of, and demand for, the delivery of basic services in the three key sectors of health, education, and social protection. The goal is to bring the government closer to the governed. The implementing agencies do so by, among others, organizing public hearings where local and national authorities listen to the people explain their problems with regards service delivery.
This session in Maborie was on education, and Kamara, the Head Teacher of the village’s only school, was one of about half a dozen people identified to speak for the community. The elderly educator started by heaping praises on the SABI implementing partners for teaching them how to demand for their rights, before listing out their concerns.
“There is no toilet, no water and no trained and qualified teachers,” he said, reading from a prepared statement.
But more urgent for the people of Maborie is the completion of their new classroom block.
Crumbling Building
Maborie, a small community in in the outskirts of Magburaka in the northern Tonkolili District, has an estimated population of 500 people. The school, officially named Tonkolili District Primary School, has a total population of 229 pupils - 134 in the primary school of classes 1 to 6, and 95 in the nursery school. All of these are currently housed in two dilapidated structures.
The main classroom block, which is made of sticks, plastered with mud, houses classes 1, 2 and 4. A thatched structure under some Mango Trees behind the main classroom block serves as learning space for classes 3 and 5, comprising a total of 42 pupils.
“We just use it to protect against the sun,” Teacher Kamara said, explaining the unconducive atmosphere that characterizes the learning environment in the makeshift structure.
Adjacent to the thatched structure is a space under the mango trees that serves as the ‘staff room’.
Abdul Jalloh, field officer with Restless Development, one of the implementing partner organizations of the SABI project, explained that during the rainy season, no learning takes place in the school as the thatched classroom block becomes useless, while the main classroom block becomes a danger zone in the eyes of wary parents.
Village Headman Ibrahim Kanu explained that when the SABI project was first introduced to the community, they set up a committee to identify their problems for consideration. School was the number one priority, he said.
“Parents were reluctant to send their children to the school because of safety concerns,” he stated.
Before the old structure deteriorated, Maborie used to be a Makkah for neighboring villages like Massoko, Mayoma and Patifu, which were not fortunate to have their own schools. Many of the parents in these communities have now decided to take their children to other schools in communities like Masenpeh, which is three miles farther away from them than the distance they covered to Maborie.
“They preferred to have their kids walk longer distance due to the fear of the danger posed by the crumbling building,” said Francis Kamara, Field Officer with the Sierra Leone Social Aid Volunteers, another SABI partner organization.
A few meters from the older structures lies the new classroom block under construction. It’s built with mud blocks but fitted with cement. On top of the windowless building are shiny corrugated iron sheets serving as roof.
Besides plastering, the villagers need help to do the flooring and painting of the building. They will also need furniture, like chairs and tables.
The Sierra Leone government is implementing one of the most ambitious public service initiatives by a government: a free education scheme. Its goal is to have every child have at least a primary and secondary school education.
The government has therefore undertaken to provide free tuition for all school going children within the appropriate age bracket.
In spite of the praises for it, the Free Quality Education scheme has been characterized by a lot of issues, and the Maborie situation serves as a perfect illustration.
Whereas the school has been fortunate to be approved, five of its eight teachers have not been approved, even though they are qualified. This means that these teachers aren’t on the government payroll. They also are not likely to be considered in case of any professional development opportunity from the government. Yet the Free Quality Education policy says once a school is approved all its trained and qualified teachers are approved. That’s notwithstanding the fact that school approval is by the Ministry of Basic and Secondary School Education (MBSSE) while teacher approval is by the recently created Teaching Service Commission (TSC).
Like many community schools across the country, Maborie relies on teachers recruited from the local community. The villagers want the government to train the unqualified staff, as a cushion against the old-age issue around teacher retention.
Addressing misconceptions
The SABI program makes use of local government structures under Sierra Leone’s decentralization program, wherein communities are arranged from Village level, to Ward level to the Constituency level, for ease of coordination of development activities.
Maborie is one of about 35 villages that make up Ward 168 in Constituency 049. And meetings like this are hard hardly held without the involvement of the Ward Councilor, in this case Councilor Almamy S. Kamara, who chaired the over five hours interactive discussion held under mango tress just behind the village. Kamara hailed Maborie as one of the most responsible among the villages in his Ward.
“They are always ready and available when called upon,” Councilor Kamara said in his opening statement, urging the villagers to pay attention and to make use of the opportunity to express themselves in front of the visiting team.
Other speakers included the Village Imam, the women’s and youth leaders.
And at meetings like this, people from neighboring Wards attend to learn from the Ward under review. In this case a delegation comprising members from the Ward Committee from the villages of Mayossoh, Mamunpha and Magbass was in attendance. Among them was Paul Driscoll Koroma from Mayossoh, who is also a teacher at the secondary school there. He took the opportunity to share part of their concerns.
In Mayossoh Secondary School, out of 10 teachers, only three were approved. And two weeks into the third term of the academic year, only the three approved teachers were reporting for work, he said. Mr Koroma added that as a result most of the 375 pupils in the school were unattended to.
All these concerns and questions were directed at one man: Joseph Lamin, who works in the office of the Coordinator of the Free Quality Education Programme in the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education. He answered to each and every concern or question he had answers for. And where he didn’t, he promised to take it up with the relevant officials and institutions in Freetown.
Crucially, such a session also accords the opportunity for misconceptions to be addressed by the relevant government officials.
In Teacher Kamara’s statement, he spoke about the lack of transparency in the school approval process. They had no idea what criteria the Education Ministry uses to select schools for approval, he said. Other concerns included the school feeding program, which the communities in these areas say they aren’t benefitting from. There was also the issue of delay in disbursement of the school subsidy, which all approved schools are entitled to.
Mr Lamin, who happens to be a member of the committee that approves schools, took his time to explain the criteria involved in the approval process. About 1200 schools applied for approval since the institution of the free education program, he said.
“If we followed the rules strictly, Maborie would not have been approved,” he stated, citing the unavailability of water, toilet facility, recreational/sport ground and a minimum number of qualified teachers as key conditions for an approved status.
The education official however admitted that the approval process was slow but assured that the issues will eventually be resolved.
On the other thorny issue of teachers’ approval, Lamin said the names were on the desk of the TSC, the institution charged with the responsibility of recruitment and training of teachers. He promised to make a follow up with the Commission on behalf of the villagers.
He also promised to make a follow up with the Ministry of Finance to ensure the transfer of the school's subsidy.
Lamin also promised to discuss with relevant officials at MBSSE to support Maborie by providing future for its new building.
Payment of the subsidy will help the community complete the building and pay its unapproved teachers. They will need to move to the new building before the new academic year, that's if the old building survives this raining season.
The villagers were also informed that the school feeding program is supported by NGOs and covers only selected chiefdoms in a few districts. Government, Mr Lamin explained, was planning to scale it up to cover all the districts, with a proposed budget of Le69billion.
It was also revealed that the delay in accessing books meant for the school was caused by a break in chain of communication between the District Council and the Directorate of Education in the District.
Under Sierra Leone’s devolution program, Basic Education is devolved to the local councils, which are responsible to ensure that learning materials reach the schools.
Councilor Kamara owned up to the delay and committed to ensuring that the books were transported as soon as possible.
The SABI project, headed by the charity Christian AID, has a total of seven local and international NGOs and civil society groups as implementing partners. Among them is Focus 1000, the health campaign group which uses research to advocacy for quality healthcare delivery, especially among women and children.
Focus 1000 headed coordinated the monitoring mission to Maborie. Saad Barrie, SABI project manager at Focus 1000, noted that the presentations of the villagers showed that they were doing what SABI envisaged – locals yearning for their own solutions.
“They could have easily asked for the education ministry representative to provide them teachers, but they asked for their own to be trained. It means they know the locals will stay,” Barrie told Politico after the session.
(c) 2019 Politico Online
