April 13, 2021
By Mohamed M. Sesay
President Julius Maada Bio has empathized with students at Limkokwin University of Creative Technology over the long delay in the resumption of their academic pursuit. The President however insisted that the Limkokwin University agreement is a bad agreement that never went to neither Parliament nor cabinet and therefore warrants termination. He promised to transfer all students of the university to other public universities.
“I pity the students of Limkokwin University. We are pushing to fix a very difficult situation. Like I said we inherited an extremely difficult situation be it in the economic field and be it in education right across government. So what we are trying to do now is to see how we can get all of these students in to other universities so that they can continue their education”, he assured.
President Bio continued that, his government started paying fees for students at Limkokwin University for two years but then he realized that it is unfair to pay 30 million Leones for one student at Limkokwin university as per the nature of the agreement whereas, other students in Public Universities in Sierra Leone cannot pay that amount. He intimated that what even added insult to injury was the fact that, the whole Limkokwin University arrangement had never gone to cabinet and parliament adding that, it was an arrangement between an individual and that of a private institution.
President Bio acknowledged that, it is their responsibility as a government to have the students at Limkokwin University educated especially when his New Direction Government prides in Human Capital Development above all other government policies.
He sais most of those who went to the Limkokwin university do not have university requirement and therefore questionaied: “how can government even take them to other universities within the country when they don’t have the basic requirements?”
He described the Limkokwin situation as a compounded problem with untold dilemma for government. He reemphasized that government will not continue to pay three thousand dollars per year for a student at Limkokwin University when government scholarship is around five hundred dollars per student in other universities in Sierra Leone.
President Bio further stated that It does not necessarily mean one has to fix all the classrooms and have all the monies before one could introduce Free Education. He assured that, his government is fixing a system that is fit for purpose in the educational sector in this 21st century era.
“We have had a lot of challenges even with the school calendar and we are working on it. What has been happening in the past is that the kids are no longer studying anymore. And we the parents were supporting them by giving them monies to buy examination papers. The teachers and the principals were helping them to have access to examination malpractice. We were killing the soul of our own children in this nation by doing that and that is what is responsible for the poor results we are having. Therefore what we have to do as parents is to stop giving monies to our kids to go and buy papers. We have to tell the teachers to cover the syllabus in the specific time that they have. Our current educational system is not necessarily different from other parts in the world”, he said.