By Mathew Kanu in Makeni
The UN children’s agency, Unicef and ActionAid International have pledged their commitment to achieving universal primary education by 2015, which is goal two of the Millennium Development Goals.
With funds from the UK government, UNICEF recently provided support for ActionAid to implement the enrolment of “six-year old grade one project” in the Bombali District.
The two organisations officially launched the project in the presence of parents, teachers and civil society organizations in the district.
The project will target 3,360 children, 1,680 of whom are boys and an estimated 84 primary schools in ten chiefdoms in the district.
Coordinator of the Bombali District Education Caucus, Shek Tejan-Sie, observed that the project might be a good idea if only proper monitoring measures were assured.
“There are over 200,000 children out of school every year in this country [and] our responsibility now is to monitor the implementation of the project to ensure that the right thing is done” Shek urged. He went on that the north was far behind the other areas of the country in terms of primary education and that more needed to be done to bring children into the main fold of education in Bombali district.
Marshal Gibril Mansaray, the programme manager of Community Empowerment for Rural Development, a civil society organization that monitors the progress of education in the district, said they had been monitoring ActionAid’s education projects for many years.
“From the civil society point of view primary education is very important not only for Bombali District but also for the entire country,” he said, adding that there had been schools in the district but the retention and completion of primary education was a problem.
A 2010 civil society baseline survey warned that there was need to improve primary education in the district.
It said that in Sierra Leone the enrolment of children into primary school had almost doubled in the last decade with a gross enrolment ratio for primary education.
Despite that increase, a draft country status report in 2010 said “the number of out-of-school children was estimated at approximately 232,645, representing 24% of the primary school age population. Of those, one percent will be dropout and 23% would have never attended.”
Country director for ActionAid, Mohamed Sillah told Politico that education was the most important gift the country could give to its children.
He said they were grateful to Unicef for supporting the drive towards achieving universal primary education in the country.
“This is all about collaboration and cooperation not only with Unicef but with everyone in Sierra Leone. And we need to know that the school is a transformational centre that will strengthen the country’s education sector,” he said.
Sillah said getting the children to school at age six years and retaining them would enable them become ambassadors of change in their communities.
“We will apply the principle of transparency and accountability in the implementation of the project,” he assured.
Chairman of the Bombali district council education committee, Dobson Kanu, said Unicef and ActionAid were complementing government’s effort in providing primary education in the district.
He said the UNICEF and ActionAid desire was to promote primary education not only for Bombali district but the entire country.
“We are gathered here for the future of our children and children yet unborn. Our target now as a government is matching up with international standards which enable us to develop the human resource development of the country. Children should be retained in schools and allowed to complete their primary school if we are to forge ahead as a nation,” he said.
Unicef rep, Regina Saffa, said Unicef was geared towards improving primary education and working closely with private partners and local councils across the region.
She said they were ready to provide technical support in project writing for councils to enable them get similar support for the pursuit of universal primary education in the Northern Province.
The national chairman for head teachers’ council, Lamin Dumbuya, said education would start from the local level, noting that the initiative to develop primary education to benefit all Sierra Leoneans was good.
(C) Politico 24/09/13
