Basic Education had posed a challenge to pupils in Sierra Leone, exacerbated by lack of competitiveness in modern technology and civilization. As a result, in the past, accessing educational materials, quality teaching and learning and enhanced knowledge in modern trends were almost far-fetched. However, with the advent of the New Direction administration under President Dr. Julius Maada Bio, positive strides have been made to improve the education system of Sierra Leone with a focus on Basic and Senior Secondary Education – the bedrock of human capital and socio-economic development.
In line with recent development within the Basic and Senior Education system in Sierra Leone,
A-Z African Magazine had an exclusive interview with the minister for Basic and Senior Secondary School Education Dr. David Moinina Sengeh.
The young Harvard-trained minister was retrospective as to where he met the ministry and introspective about his intentional trajectory, underlined by the successes of pupils in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and those in the cadre of the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) to boldly forecast a brighter future for education under the current administration. See full excerpt of the interview.
Q: I have heard and seen your admirable work around the world. For people who don’t know you, and may want to you, who is Dr. David Moinina Sengeh?
I like to think that am just a regular guy, a rapper, a designer, a public sector president, a Minister, a father, a husband, I play football. Like, I am just a regular guy.
Q: Wow! It’s amazing to know that you do rap.
Yeah, I rap; I write and I’ve just published my first book titled “Radical Inclusion.”
Q: And, technology?
For my background, I did my PhD in studying design, printing, and manufacturing. I joined IBM as a data scientist while I enrolled on computer programs doing machine learning and AI [Artificial Intelligence] through the Directorate of Data Science and Innovation and I’m still dealing with administration and data science.
Q: For five years, you have been minister for basic education in Sierra Leone, right?
I have been Chief Innovation Officer for five years, and have been Minister for three and half years.
Q: Can you briefly tell us the number of children that have benefited from the flagship programme, which is the Free Quality Education?
So, every child in Sierra Leone has benefited from the Free Quality Education, but others in private schools did not benefit. However, those in private schools benefited from the radio teaching Programme during the COVID-19 pandemic, which was a form of intervention through government policies and guidelines, which saw every pupil benefit. It is normal that people don’t benefit because they are in private schools; and those who directly benefit most of the time are people who are in public schools; and these are schools that receive support from the government; ninety-five per cent of our schools are public schools. We have about 3 million students in the system; and 2.3 million of them benefit from school subsidies. We pay school fees for them, we pay exam fees for every child, public and private NPSE and BECE and in the first couple of years we paid for WASSCE as well in the private schools, but in the public schools we pay exam fees. We provide teacher training for over 25,000 teachers recruited. For the children, directly, those that benefit from subsidies and school fees payment are around 2.3 million; this is anywhere between thirty-five to over fifty percent in the pre-primary and primary to JSS and SSS levels.
Q: Could you please share your vision in reshaping the education system in Sierra Leone?
I think the vision for transforming education comes from His Excellency President Bio. The President has a commitment that we should work for pre-primary school education, that is inclusive, and makes sure that every child benefits; and that direction came from the President’s manifesto, and was later imputed into the National Development Plan. The National Development Plan advises the ministry and within the ministry we have the Education Policy, Education Act, Education Work Plan and all other things related. But our vision is rooted in the fact that everybody has access to quality education. They should feel safe no matter who they are.
Q: Kindly take us briefly on the successes made by your ministry, and your personal gains as a minister, specifically on the new initiatives you’ve inculcated into the educational system.
I think for me, we have been able to improve the quality of education. People think that quality is just one word, but it talks about the quality of the system, quality of learning, quality of the environment, quality of teaching, quality of training, and quality of monitoring. These are all part of quality education, not that single thing. We have been able to improve all these areas individually. We are not perfect, but there is an improvement.
We have been able to improve on the quality of teaching… as I mentioned earlier, we have more trained and qualified teachers.
A lot more teachers are been trained. We use the learning outcomes to measure how we would improve on the progress of kids who are accessing, taking and passing exams; and a number of teachers in the classrooms.
We have a new collective learning agreement with teachers and a fantastic relationship with the Sierra Leone Teachers Union (SLTU) that is progressive and places teachers in the center of our programs.
When there is an emergency, we sit with the (SLTU) to engage; this was a vision we had; we have been able to link education data since 2015; so everything that we do is not just based on what I say or based on 2018; from 2015 all of our schools education data has been linked and it’s digitalized and proven, so anybody can go and see and compare; that’s the most beautiful of all of this process.
We have built provisions like the result checker that has been used over two million times so kids can check their results; from real a time.
We have also built real-time dictionaries by SMS, the educational radio programme expanded pretty much nationwide, learning-passport prints digital contents and past papers to students.
A whole bunch of policies that we have developed including school feeding project, radical inclusion, school safety, lots, that includes policy-wise. Umm! System level, I think for me the biggest gain is that, whether I am around or not work will continue; we have changed the culture of delivery in the ministry; and that for me is the most important thing. All my staff anywhere understand our commitment to children, our schools and principals.
Q: What have been your key objectives for every giving year in the Ministry of Basic Education?
I think every year we have whiteboard work where we need to deliver from my office, what the ministry has delivered, the annual work plan, and it has been powering with the National Learning Plan Goals, and the Development Plan Goals. We tried to work on them.
Q: What are the primary challenges currently facing the education sector, and what steps are being taken to address them?
I think the challenges remain valid until today; there have been more teachers in the classrooms who want to volunteer. We have a lot and we are reducing it. It means schools have been difficult. For that change, our economy has to grow and we should be able to pay our workforce and solve the workforce as schools. The budget has been limited in our economy. I think the system changes exactly when it takes time for the system to change through education.
Q: Let us look at compliance with the one-shift system promised by the government to be implemented, has it been achieved thoroughly?
We have not been able to achieve a universal one shift across the country; but in many places, we have gotten to a single shift. There are minimum of three or four headquarter towns where there is a double shift; but the majority of schools have become single shift. Every year dozens of schools become single-shift as we progress.
Q: Can you describe the measures taken to ensure equal access to education for all children regardless of their social background?
For us we have been able to focus on radical inclusion; making sure that children, wherever they come from, would have access to schools. That is why we have provided more classrooms. We have built about one-thousand classrooms in the last five years; and we have been able to ensure that kids, wherever they come from, are able to gain access to the learning environment. And we have been recruiting teachers there.
Q: What are the initiatives implemented to improve the overall well-being of children in schools?
We have recently passed the Comprehensive School Safety Policy which states about protecting children from where they are in uniforms in their house, all the way to school, and all the way back from school; and that implies other policies. Meanwhile, we are focusing on how to protect not just physically but align their psycho-social and all of those wins and policy guidelines; ensuring that there are guidelines and also ensuring that they are linked with other government agencies that work part of our combined effort in making sure that children are protected.
Q: How important is incorporating soft skills, like communication, teamwork, and critical thinking into the curriculum? Are there any initiatives being undertaken in this regard?
One of the things that we have done that shifts our Basic Education Curriculum and accessing the education curriculum activities is, we have developed a new curriculum framework; underpinning those curriculum frameworks we have the five C`s which are Competition, Comprehension, Creativity, Critical thinking and Civic. It is important to actually be proud of themselves.
Q: Are there any such thing or programme as exchange programmes for Sierra Leonean students going to other countries to interact with other cultures and learn new skills that they could revert to the country for nation building?
At the Basic Educational level, we have very few of those existing exchange programs with the US; and at least with the US Embassy. It is not something that we have done at the basic educational level effectively, but in the higher level, they have opportunities for children to travel to the US.
Q: How do you evaluate the effectiveness of the current assessment methods in place at various educational levels? Are there any plans for improvement or modification?
In our new Educational Act, we have talked about transition exam. We have the National Assessment Learning Unit. The point about exam is to make sure that our kids are learning and not only to write and pass. We have been able to use those learning and examining moments as learning opportunity for children in order for them to grow, and that is behind our thinking. However, the Ministry of Basic Education is doing its best to improve on pupils’ assessment or evaluation methods to meet international standards.
Q: Of course, you are also known for being a tech expert; currently in Sierra Leone, there are many young people inventing tech-equipment to solve socio-environmental challenges; what has your ministry done to nurse, enhance and develop such creativity for commercial investment in Sierra Leone?
As a ministry we are always welcoming kids who would create and we have a reference library where students are being supported, with the National Commission for Children, through the learning innovation week. Therefore, many things that we can do are accessible to creativity and innovation. At the technical education level, there are government institutes, universities and several other programs geared towards promoting technical education. We still seeking new and greater opportunities for those young tech individuals to incorporate them within educational curriculum for a wider knowledge sharing experience.
Q: What could probably be the hypothesis for the improvement of education in Sierra Leone going forward; and what role will the education ministry play in achieving that vision?
I think on every single indicator of the Sustainable Development Goals, indicates that, Sierra Leone has done better than in previous years and each one of those is a benchmark. Even in higher point; that really gives us the hope that we would be better in all the things we are doing today and we would be better tomorrow.
