The need to rejig education in Sierra Leone

By Sam Kargbo

The West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) is a standardized test administered by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) for final year students in senior secondary schools in the English speaking countries of West Africa.

The students who take the examination are awarded the WASSCE certificate irrespective of the grades they score. The grading system ranges from A1 (Excellent) to F9 (Fail). A student who scores F9 in a subject did not score up to 40% in the subject. Students are prepared for the examination by their schools for a continuous period of three years.

Subjects like English Language and Mathematics are compulsory, but other subjects are mostly chosen by the students from a list to meet the requirements of the courses they desire to study in the respective universities they may fancy.

WAEC also conducts West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for private candidates or secondary school leavers who want to complete the number of subjects they need to pursue tertiary education. To qualify for admission into tertiary institutions for the acquisition of certificates, diplomas or academic degrees, a student is usually required to, in not more than two sittings, have credits (a minimum of 50%) in a minimum of five subjects from the examinations conducted by WAEC.

It has been reported that over 90% of the students who took the 2019 WASSCE in Sierra Leone failed. Although there is no clear statistical data on this (the Sierra Leone WAEC website is bare), there are widespread concerns among the elite about what the result portends for the present and future of the country. The abysmal state of the education sector is the worst indictment of the country’s leadership since independence. It is disgraceful and unforgivable for a country that laid the foundations of education in the English speaking West African community to allow its education sector to deteriorate to such a crisis level.

Good and sustained investment in education is, therefore, imperative for Sierra Leone. Investigations by experts have revealed that education is one of the fundamental factors of development, and that no country can achieve sustainable economic development without substantial investment in human capital. In a word, education drives economic development. Education promotes creativity, productivity, inventiveness, knowledge and knowledge acquisition, income generation, human capital, entrepreneurship, scientific and technological pursuits and advancement, and, indeed, general competitiveness.

Sierra Leone is poor and has been consistently recording one of the lowest grades in global human development index partly because of its low investment in education. The standards and quality of education in Sierra Leone are dismally low. The prescribed standards for Primary, Secondary and Tertiary education are not being attained by educators and policy makers, as pupils and students do not possess or demonstrate the knowledge and skills expected of them at critical points in their educational career.

The education standards and quality of education in the country as shown in public examinations are declining in such an alarming rate that if nothing is done now, the education sector is most likely to deteriorate further. The curricula and assessment systems for Primary, Secondary and Tertiary educational standards are not working effectively, and are, consequently, not producing the desired results. Sadly, the declining standards and poor quality of education are already adversely affecting all other sectors and facets of the economy and society.

It is clear that the causes of the falling standards and quality of education in the country include:

1. Poor funding and neglect of the education sector that allowed basic school infrastructure and facilities across the country to run down to the point of sordid decay;
2. The distasteful state of teaching, a profession that has become very unattractive to undergraduate and postgraduate students, which, in turn, has denied the profession the quality of the teachers and educators it requires for it to deliver the prescribed standards and quality for Primary, Secondary, Vocational and Tertiary education;
3. The pervasive poor infrastructure and the lack of teaching tools and research facilities at all levels of education in Sierra Leone, which is frustrating those in the teaching profession and putting off those who would otherwise be attracted to it;
4. Poor remuneration and welfare of academic and non-academic staff;
5. Frequent change in – and inconsistent – education policies;
6. Moral laxity, corruption and examination malpractices;
7. The crave for paper qualification and disinterest in learning and acquisition of knowledge and skills among pupils and students; and
8. Parents’ lack of interest in – and neglect of – their children’s education.

May it be noted that:

1. Education provides the most reliable foundation for the country’s growth and development;
2. The country’s ability to compete effectively in the modern age of science and technology is dependent on the standard and quality of education in the country; and
3. The ability of the country’s students and graduates to succeed in our global economy and society is dependent on the standard and quality of education in the country.

It is therefore necessary for the Government to:

1. Declare a state of emergency in the education sector and increase the funding of schools to restore the glory of the teaching profession in Sierra Leone;
2. Establish well-equipped and well-staffed vocational institutions and skill academies across the country to cater for the teaming uneducated or half-baked and unemployable youths in the country. Sports, music, film and other entertainment academies and skill acquisition vocational institutions would help in taking off the streets the army of uneducated or half-baked youths and turn them into a productive human capital class that will complement graduates from the country’s tertiary institutions. Formal education alone cannot meet the human capital needs of a country like Sierra Leone that is lagging behind in almost every aspect of development. Therefore, the answer to the question of who is to be educated should incorporate a decisive statement on the goals of the proposed education drive of the Government. The proposed education drive should not end with the expansion of the literacy rate of the country. Emphasis should be on knowledge and skill acquisition that will emphasize self-employment and entrepreneurship and deemphasize the craving for white-collar jobs. The overarching goal should be to produce, in the near future, exportable competitive human capital;
3. The education policy should emphasize the improvement of the status of teachers by affording them the opportunities and tools to build their capacities to deliver better quality education to pupils and students in the country. Clear and purposeful steps should be taken to provide teachers with better pre-service and in-service training;
4. Parents and guardians should be encouraged to be more involved in early childhood education, seeing that it is the foundation of every level of education;
5. Agencies concerned with registration of teachers and regulation of their training should evolve more vibrant methodologies for delivering on their mandate;
6. Corporate bodies should be made to invest in education and complement the good efforts of religious bodies in the sector through an education tax. The Government should consider establishing an education tax fund;
7. Government should give incentives and tax waivers to corporate bodies that invest in education;
8. School authorities must curb moral laxity and examination malpractices in schools; and
9. Society – particularly, employers – should be made to deemphasize paper qualifications and emphasize knowledge and skills in assessing candidates.

Sam Kargbo is a Sierra Leonean lawyers based in Abuja and Lagos (Nigeria). He holds an LL.B, LL.M, BL, and is a Principal Partner of Jackson, Kargbo & Associates, Legal Practitioners.

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