July 13, 2021
By: PROBLYN JOHN ALPHA
Some heads of schools in the municipality of Koidu have questioned the clarion call of president Bio’s Free Quality Education Flagship program of the Sierra Leone People’s Party led government.
According to them, the prompt payment of school subsidies which is meant to cushion the financial challenges in the running of school have not been paid for the rest of the third term 2021 academic year, which they said is very unfortunate as the SLPP led government under the leadership of president Bio puts premium on Free Quality Education.
The heads of schools who spoke to our correspondent pointed out that for the clarion call of president Bio’s Free Quality Education to be on a sound footing or successful, the problem with the late or non-payment of school subsidies and teachers welfare should be seriously looked into as one can only teach when he or she is pleased.
Asked to know the importance of school subsidies in the day to day running of the respective schools in Kono District and the country as a whole, the teachers who spoke to A-Z Multimedia maintained that the importance of the payment of the much talked about school subsidies cannot be overemphasised as they are used to produce report cards, maintenance of school furniture and the payment of incentive to teachers that are not on government pin code.
Meanwhile, according to a Public Notice from the Ministry of Finance with the caption payment of third term tuition fees and 2021 examination fees for NPSE and BECE for pupils in government and government assisted schools stated that the Ministry of Finance in collaboration with the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education as part of their commitment to financing the Free Quality Education Programme have paid the total amount of Le 74,417,130,000 to beneficiary schools for pupils in pre-primary, primary, junior and senior secondary schools and to the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) for the conduct of 2021 NPSE and BECE exams.
In view of the aforesaid amount, the sum of Le 51,925,870,000 was in respect of tuition fees for 2,190,884 pupils in government and government assisted schools for the third term of the 2020/2021 academic year.
The sum of Le 20,491,260,000 represents hundred percent (100%) payment for the 2021 National Primary School Examination (NPSE) for 161,404 candidates and le 10,000,000 being fifty five percent (55%) payment for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for 130,898 candidates. The notice further informed all and sundry that the payment are made directly into the bank account of the beneficiary schools and enrolment data submitted by the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education. The notice has mandated commercial and community banks to credit the account of the schools.