By: Audrey Raymonda John
The Ministry of Technical and Higher Education has held a press briefing on Thursday 13th October 2021 to update the media on the Resolutions emanating from meetings held with heads of higher educational institutions.
The Minister of Higher and Technical Education Prof. Alpha Tejan Wurie said the Ministry was delinked by President Julius Maada Bio in 2018 by seperating it from basic education for them to focus specifically on technical and higher education.
The minister realized that since it separation from the basic education ministry the depth of supervision and the potential expansion was not as evidence as it is now as according to him the President urged the ministry to focus on the betterment of technical and tertiary institutions of learning.
He said the Ministry has been working in consonant with the professional administrators of Higher education.
Professor Wurie said in 2018 when the government takes over governance, over thirty two thousand people sat the WASSCE examination,pointing further that’s it was the period of the inception of the free Quality School Education.
“The opportunity was given to one hundred and two thousand people that wrote the exams but those that has five credits including Maths and English language at one sitting in 2019 was just three thousand one hundred and fifty six and the people that took that exams has been in school from classes one to SSS 3”, he explained.
He said the intervention of government didn’t make any significance in 2019 and in 2020 the number who attempted the WASSCE exams was 151,515 and 5,775 had five credits at one sitting and according to the minister it doesn’t mean that all of them will enter university.
“In 2021 156,231 sat the exams where 51,748 hitting five credits at one sitting in 2022, 186,695 sat the exams whereas 108,418 had five credits”, he stated.
He said the Ministry in consultation with the Vice Chancellor and Principals of public tertiary institutions had earlier decided and agreed on the following date 15th October 2022 be the commencement date for the 2022/23 academic year.
“In this academic year there is the re-introduction of preliminary year for students pursuing STEM programmes; that students pursuing various diploma programmes and successfully so in the constituent colleges of public universities would be allowed to pursue degrees in the same options at various levels based on their cumulative grade point average(CGPA). All newly admitted students start lectures on the 17th October 2022”, the minister narrated.
He also said It was also reported that all Public Universities have completed their end of year examination with the exception of Fourah Bay College who will be completing on the 19th Oct. 2022.
Admission 2022/2023
Following the publication of the 2022 WASSCE results, the MTHE convened a meeting with Heads and Registrars of HEIs to deliberate on the modes of
Absorbing these candidates viz-viz, assessment of the existing facilities, capacity etc.
He said starting October Kono University will commence Foundation Courses in November 2022 leading to Diploma and Certificate programmes.
He said the Sierra Leone University, MIHE and Vice-Chancellors and principals are to work with Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) for the establishment of accreditation of E-Learning course options.
“Since not all Public Tertiary Institutions do have such a platform, the creation of Sierra Leone Open University was to commence this academic year”, he disclosed.
He concluded by noting that the government is committed to increase funding to support new interventions in higher education.
Admission Criteria
Requirements University
Requirements) Interviews
Oral
Written -MCQ/Paper base / online, etc.
Mode of lectures
Face-to-face classroom
Virtual classroom/ distance education Shift system Establishments of community colleges As a new approach to access higher education provisions at Community and District levels.
