October 7, 2021
BY PROBLYN J. ALPHA
A training guide for school management Committee (SMC) in Sierra Leone has been launched by the education Minister Dr David Moinina Sengeh.
This is according to a news update posted by the Minister on social media. The Minister informs that a sum of almost 20 Million United States Dollars will be giving directly to SMC’s for use by the 5,074 Government and nongovernmental assisted Primary schools nationwide.
These resources will be as part of the performance based financing (PBF) schedule which gives resources to schools for agreed outcomes like retention, teachers attendance , inclusion and the likes. This is the largest scale of PBF ever in Sierra Leone.
A pilot in 2015 with 1,350 schools and in 2018, 1,850 Schools all informed the newly developed validated and rolled out of the PBF Manual for the training , all SMC’s will be trained that is the for 6,464 schools across the Country. The education Minister further said that Bank accounts of 95% of the 5,074 beneficiary schools have already been validated and set to receive the PBF. Meanwhile, down below is an OP-ED article by the Minister shared on his face book page. On public education government to invest approximately $ 20 Million directly to 6,074 Public Primary Schools via School management Committees.
OP-ED by David Moinina Sengeh
It is quick for critics to demonise public schools. However, assisted schools (Government owned and government assisted are largely a reflection of our Communities. Government is implementing similar programmes to improve the quality of education nationwide by putting the quality of education sibling back to our Communities. According to the education Act of 2004, government owned schools are managed and run by the school management committees (SMC) in Primary and Boards of Governors (BOGs) in Secondary Schools.
Prior to 2018, SMC’s and BOGs, were political tools and largely non-functional. President Bio promised to de- politicalised BOG’s and revamp SMC’s Via Training. New BOG’s and SMC’s manuals have been trained in reducing and administrative planning and management within the MBSSE multi- Donor Trust Fund $ 19.6 Million will be distributed to Primary Schools directly via the performance based financing scheme which will give resources to schools for achieving certain learning output and targets ( enrolled attendance, completion gender mindfulness etc.).
To better enhance our channels lead facilitators from FBC, Freetown Teachers College and Seasoned retired teachers are currently conducting training on trainers from among the SMC’s who will then cascade that training for each school. In fact, 6,464 Primary schools will benefit from the training which is more than those who will get financial support because we made this promised to our people, the Minister maintained.