By Isaac Massaquoi
When President Koroma decided in May this year to postpone the basic education exams or BECE, the gateway to senior secondary school, he was trying to do two things : send a message to the entire country that we cannot continue to behave as if we were normal people when one part of our body was being battered by a strange disease that could easily infect and eventually kill the whole body; he was also trying to be politically correct by not isolating Kailahun - an opposition stronghold and hence create the impression that those who weren't his supporters do not matter, even in an epidemic.
Indeed, the notorious political rumour mill in Freetown was rife with such narratives. I read at least two newspapers whose editorials had that slant.
As they say, the jury is still out on the question of whether with the benefit of hindsight, it was wrong to have isolated Kailahun completely to keep the rest of the country safe. Like Foday Sankoh's war which started in Kailahun and slowly engulfed the whole country killing more than 10, 000 people, there is no family left in this country not directly or indirectly touched by the Ebola outbreak that now holds Sierra Leone in a headlock.
I still remember asking myself how the government knew that Ebola would have been defeated in July last year, to make it possible for the exams to take place in August, the date set by the statement announcing the postponement. I suppose that announcement adequately summed up the confusion and panic that gripped this country once pictures of the first body bags carried by men in what looked like space suits appeared on the international media accompanied by dire predictions by individuals and agencies about what Ebola was likely to do to Sierra Leone backed by local media hyper-activity.
The reality today is that the whole education system and not just public exams is a real cause for national worry. I am talking about an education system which at the best of times was struggling to demonstrate even a modicum of seriousness. It has now been further battered and bloodied by Ebola.
The country stands perilously close to losing the whole academic year if things continue like this until February 2015. If anybody tells me the year will be lost based on the current trends, I will have to agree with them because there is nothing to suggest the Ebola disease will be significantly marginalised to allow the government to re-open schools by that time. Even when we start recording zero cases in Freetown, the world will wait for six weeks before declaring us free of Ebola. Again, looking at the figures and trends and praying for the best case scenario, that will be well into April. It's a scary thought but Ebola is a very scary disease too.
I have a 11 year old at home who, after a decent performance at the NPSE, can't wait for the day she put on her new high school uniform. The story is the same in many homes across Sierra Leone with parents having to explain again and again, why schools are closed and crucially, when schools would re-open. Children like to have answers to all their questions. They generally believe their parents know everything. Imagine how I've been coping with the endless barrage.
The emergency radio teaching programme took away some of the heat when it came into being. Emergency learning is what it is. Let's not pretend. It should only complement classroom work and not be made to appear as the main thing.
Walking through a crowded Freetown street recently, I heard two women petty traders discussing the emergency radio teaching program. One of them was very excited because she said at least her child now had something to keep her busy in the mornings. The other one also was happy about the initiative but with some reservation. I remember her saying: "even when some of our children are sitting in front of the teacher in class they find it difficult to understand what was being taught forcing us to pay for extra lessons, how much more being taught on radio." I supposed that's understandable. In fact, the initial euphoria that greeted the exercise is dwindling fast.
It hasn't helped that the teaching programme has been so badly distracted in the last three weeks and in fact undermined by a ruthless media campaign organised by an NGO that definitely played a part in starting the process, openly accusing Ministry of Education officials of corruption. This was clearly avoidable.
Some of the main beneficiaries of the school teaching programme are too young to understand the fault lines exposed in the system by how a man who was due to collect a cheque for Le 39 million for producing their programmes was called to an office and told to sign up documents authenticating receipt of the money, but actually going home with just Le 9 million leones in cash after the money had been paid into the account of a ministry official. Jimmy B can spin a blockbuster movie around this on a low budget - the characters are here and ready to go. I can't understand what else the ACC needs to start investigating a possible case of soliciting an advantage against some ministry officials based on information deliberately available to all journalists on CD.
I believe that the government will come under a lot of pressure to re-open schools early in January. There's a sense in which it's beginning to dawn on parents that their children look almost certain to lose an academic year with all the consequences of that - unwanted pregnancies, criminality and a loss of appetite for education. What I have heard so far about the number of children who've been impregnated during this barren period in the life is alarming. And I am actually talking about figures from the Ministry of Social Welfare.
I have heard heated arguments on radio and read posts on social media particularly by University students urging the government to re-start schools. Those voices will grow louder and louder in the first three weeks of January and the government and their international partners will have to give reasons more substantial and believable than constantly accusing the people of not being good citizens for disobeying the orders of the commander of the national troops in the war against Ebola.
I have lived in the three original Mano River Union countries and I will say without hesitation that we are all the same people. To accuse Sierra Leoneans of prolonging their own agony in the hands of Ebola by constantly washing dead bodies and keeping sick people at home after almost a year of sensitisation, threats and arrests, while Liberians and Guineans have fully cooperated, is as wrong as setting up an attitudinal and behavioural change secretariat which, in its early stages blamed the people for the nation's woes as if they were the ones who by their conduct in public life glorified corruption and laziness.
At this time, nobody wants us to talk any more about how much time we lost getting our troops ready for battle. We changed battlefield commanders, equipment and battle plans three times before our commander in chief called on the world to help us fight us the existential threat that is Ebola. There's a lot to say to that end but it's not much use going down that path for now.
Even if with the best of good fortune school re-opens towards the end of January, a lot of things will be in the wrong places and it will require massive organisation and resources to put the system on the rails again. How I hope I will wake up in the second week of January to the voice of Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma announcing the lifting of emergency rule and re-opening our schools and our roads. The nation will breathe properly at that time. Well, I am only hoping, what else can I do sitting in Sierra Leone at this time?
© Politico 18/12/14
