Few of the students fetching water at the site
By Mohamed Vandi in Kenema
More than two hundred pupils of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Junior Secondary School in Gegbema, Kenema district have pleaded with Politico to help free them from the domestic labour they are subjected to by their principal. Some of them said what they were being subjected amounted to "slavery".
They alleged that it was normal practice for their principal to remove them from class to do his domestic work like constructing his house and fetching firewood for him. They claimed to have constructed their principal’s first house and were recently removed from their classes again to fetch water for the construction of the his second house.
Some of the pupils said they had reported the matter to their parents, while others said that "because our parents are illiterate they think domestic work is part of the requirements of the school."
Another lamented thus: "Today is Sunday, the very first day of the week. While our friends are in their class in other school, we are out fetching water in drums".
When contacted at the building site the principal, Fregido Kamara, admitted that he had taken the children out of class to help fetch water for the construction of his second house and that the act was wrong.
He said he only wanted to use the students for the first two periods of the school day and denied the allegations that he did this regularly.
The principal explained that despite the request of the community people his school had not been approved by the government since it came into being in 2009 and that he was the only teacher on Government payroll at the Ahmadiyya Muslim Primary Nyandeyama Road in Kenema.
Asked how he came to head an unapproved secondary school while still a primary school teacher, Kamara said “it was a decision reached by the Ahmadiyya Mission and the then Deputy Director of Education John Swaray”.
In a similar development pupils of Ahmadiyya Muslim Primary School in Joru, some 35 miles from Kenema, told Politico that "with a school roll of more than 300 there are only two pupil teachers that on government pay roll". They said their former principal, who was the only qualified teacher, was retired recently and they were now left at the mercy of two pupil teachers who could not effectively teach all the core subjects.
The recently-retired principal, James Mustapha Tailu, admitted that the school was in crisis. He said he had not officially handed over because it was improper to do so to a pupil teacher, one of whom now serves as a bursar.
(C) Politico 11/02/14
