Free Quality Education Fast Becoming Business Enterprise
By Edwina Sia Janga
When President Bio introduced the Free Quality School Education, it was with the conviction and desire that it will reduce the burden on parents and guardians across the country, and also encourage more kids to access education, but whilst this has seen over 2 million kids accessing school, many Parents and Guardians are feeling the wrath of the school authorities, who have now resorted to laying huge charges for entrance and other school activities. This has effectively resulted in many parents not getting the desired benefits of the program.
Many parents have on several occasions raised concerns over the very high school charges that they now have to pay for their kids. For Instance, for kids that have made it through their BECE, they are asked to pay school charges of some Le1 million (i.e. for non-prominent schools) and over Le2 million for those prominent schools. Many parents are of the view that the Ministry of Education should come very hard on school authorities to harmonize the charges, as well as make them affordable for the ordinary man.
Though unofficial, most schools have what they describe as camps, where teachers take classes for the various levels of examinations. In such situation, parents have to pay for each subject. Another disturbing fact is that it is during such extra classes in camps that some of the girls are deflowered. This does not only make rubbish the FQE, but also expose the girls to sexual exploitation by both teachers and their peers. In many cases, more time is spent on providing quality teaching to those attending such camps.
To make matters worse, there have been several incidents where FQE school materials, including textbooks and exercise books have been intercepted by the Sierra Leone Police at the Guinean border, allegedly being smuggled out of the country. Unfortunately, there has not been any clear record of an example been set against those caught with these materials. The latest of such activities is the arrest and detention of a delivery van containing thousands of FQE books at the by-pass crossing point to Guinea by the Border Patrol team. The Sierra Leone Police are doing an excellent job at the border, but what have the authorities done to serve as deterrent to such unscrupulous people?
As far as they are concerned, these people simply take the FQE od the President as a business enterprise, and are making money out of it to the detriment of the kids and the country. If the kids are to benefit from the FQE, it is incumbent on the government to address these issues, especially the aforementioned, otherwise, it will be business as usual and the poor kids will have to suffer, especially if their parents could not afford the charges and cannot pay for special classes, and the continuous smuggling of the school materials to neighboring countries.
