By Umaru Fofana
Clad in his brand new black-and-white uniform Abdulai Turay clutched his brand new second-hand black school bag, complete with his sparkling white knee-height socks and white crepes – also brand new second-hand. It is the world of second-hand in a country where even second-hand food – JUNX – is available at second-hand price. But
that is a subject for another day.
Abdulai looked fresh. As he beamed with smile I could not help but notice his new haircut. Even the barber must have been told that the young man was looking forward to sitting in a new class.
Yes a new class. This was not his first day in school. But his ebullience was too stark and impressive not to be noticed. His chest pushed forward followed by his strides which, needless to say, were brisk. His heels hardly had an encounter with the ground so much so you would think his crepes had spring under them.
Abdulai reminded me of my school days and when I was going to sit to my school-leaving exams many years ago. But he also reminded me of the recent dark past in our country's undeserving history. Those times when AK 47 riffles and rocket propelled grenade tubes served as the books and bags and and pens and pencils of boys, while girls carried babes of their own. Thanks to heartless and reckless adults. How far we have come indeed! But just how far have we really come?
The precocious boy would have been preparing for his school-leaving West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE). But that is not to be. Despite being in the SSS 3 class this year. This is because this academic year registers a defining moment in our country's educational system. Not long after the 6-3-3-4 was introduced in the early to mid 1990s, it has been modified with an additional year to senior secondary school. Abdulai said he had been
told about the change but not well prepared for it. “I would like to face the WASSCE exams in the coming months”, he told me.
Come to think of it there are many things wrong with our basic education system. Perhaps more than Abdulai realises at this stage – or may be not. When kids sit to their Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE), by the time results are out almost a term of their senior secondary school year one is gone by. So they receive tuition for two terms in the first year. And in their third year (SSS3) when it used to be the school-leaving year, they would only spend one term before the WASSCE exams started. So effectively they only spent one full academic year – in SSS2 – two terms in SSS1 and one term in SSS3. This amounted to two full academic years in senior secondary school. That was hardly sufficient time to prepare for a pre-university examination that WASSCE should be.
But adding an extra year to the current state of affairs will change nothing by itself but lengthen the agony for parents especially with daughters. The ratio between boys and girls in primary and junior secondary schools is impressive for girls. But as they advance towards senior secondary school backward traditional practice and the challenges of bringing up a girl in our society today start to take the best of the situation and many of the girls, on reaching puberty
are given off to marriage. Even with the Child Rights Act that has not changed much. I doubt the Sexual Offences Act passed recently will change it much either.
There is a tremendous gap between kids who enter primary school and those who continue to secondary school and beyond. Statistics show that less than 2% (TWO PERCENT) of those who start primary school make it to tertiary level. More needs to be done to arrest this backward trend. Abdulai says he wants to continue to university but is concerned that he may not be able to make it because his parents will not be able to afford the fees in two years when his younger siblings would have made it to secondary school. “Competing priories and the extra one year may militate against my chances” he says. Sounding hopeless.
Another problem with the startling demographics with kids as they advance probably has to do with the statistics about schools. There are, for example, 5,931 primary schools in Sierra Leone. Those who make it to junior secondary school have only 888 schools available to them, and senior secondary school figures are even grimmer – 285. The
climb-down is too huge to comprehend.
Of those numbers a good number of schools barely have a good teaching staff. And they are mostly demotivated. Not in the job for the love of it but rather as a stepping stone. Add to that the fact that the schools are badly equipped for present day education. Language and science laboratories are non-existent in most of the schools leaving me to wonder sometimes why we have a ministry with the jaw-breaking title EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY.
It is interesting that of all the things highlighted in the Gbamanja Commission report, I can count on my fingers those that have any seblance of being implemented. Whatever happened to the issue of extra classes, if classes are what they are. Those unresearched and sometimes plagiarised pamphlets are still being printed out. Ceremonial uniforms are still being charged on parents leaving one with the impression that the commission did a terrible job or money was wasted on them and their recommendations not implemented. But just how widely consultative was the work of the commission, in-country. I know they spent a huge sum of money travelling to other countries, ignoring our bright old brains available locally.
And these were things the precocious Abdulai raised in my brief chat with him on his way to school last week before saying that “because they have not been implemented I did not think my WASSCE exams would not happen in 2013 as is the case now”. It may seem basic, but Sierra Leone is yet very far away from addressing its basic education with
sincerity and honesty. Made worse by the fact that the country's three main political parties, have no clue how to respond to it. At least not as manifested in their manifesto or ideas – not after I personally contacted them for an policy position which they are yet to prepare more than one week since. I hope Abdulai's determination is not dampened by the harsh reality that faces out country's education sector – all lost in politics and lies and people who
hardly have a clear sense of purpose in the ruling party and in the opposition.
