Distrust For Free Quality Education… Politicians Send Kids To Private Schools

By Abdul Rahman Bah

Hon. Alpha Ben Mansaray’s proposal to force public officials to enroll their children in government schools has exposed one of Sierra Leone’s biggest national hypocrisies. Politicians continue to stand before microphones praising public education while quietly sending their own children to expensive private schools and foreign institutions. That contradiction alone explains why the country’s public-school system continues to decay.

For years, successive governments have celebrated education policies, launched colourful programmes, and promised transformation. Yet across Sierra Leone, thousands of pupils still learn in overcrowded classrooms with leaking roofs, broken chairs, poor toilets, and severe shortages of books and teaching materials. In many schools, children sit on bare floors while political leaders speak proudly about “quality education.”

The uncomfortable truth is simple: many leaders do not trust the system they supervise.

If ministers, parliamentarians, directors, and senior civil servants truly believed public schools were delivering quality education, they would confidently place their own children there. Instead, many spend millions on private education while ordinary Sierra Leoneans are left struggling inside collapsing classrooms.

This growing separation between the ruling class and ordinary citizens has destroyed accountability in the education sector. Once powerful people remove their families from public schools, the urgency to improve those schools also disappeared. Public education became a system managed for the poor but avoided by the elite.

Hon. Mansaray’s proposal may sound radical, but it attacks the core of Sierra Leone’s education crisis. Leaders who personally experience overcrowded classrooms, absent teachers, poor sanitation, weak discipline, and broken infrastructure would likely move faster to solve those problems. Pain creates pressure, and pressure creates action.

Today, many government schools across the country remain symbols of neglect. Some pupils walk long distances only to study in environments lacking electricity, laboratories, libraries, or even enough teachers. In rural communities, children continue learning under trees or inside unsafe buildings, while public officials debate education reforms from air-conditioned offices.

Meanwhile, elite schools continue expanding with modern facilities, computer laboratories, school buses, and international curriculums accessible only to wealthy families and politically connected individuals. Sierra Leone is gradually building two separate societies through education: one for the privileged and another for the struggling majority.

That inequality is dangerous.

A country cannot preach national unity while maintaining an education system divided by class and political power. Public schools should be the foundation where future leaders, professionals, and ordinary citizens grow together. Instead, Sierra Leone’s current structure deepens social division and weakens public confidence in state institutions.

Critics will argue that forcing officials to use public schools violates personal freedom. Others will say children should not become victims of a failing system. Those concerns are understandable. But the bigger question remains: if those controlling public education refuse to trust it with their own children, why should ordinary citizens trust it?

The reality is that many politicians only become passionate about public services when they are personally affected. Roads improve quickly near the homes of powerful people. Electricity problems receive urgent attention in elite neighbourhoods. Security increases where senior officials live. Public schools would likely receive the same urgency if the children of ministers and lawmakers depended on them daily.

Sierra Leone’s education debate must now move beyond slogans and political branding. Access to schooling alone is not enough. A child sitting inside a crowded classroom without qualified teachers, proper learning materials, or basic sanitation is not receiving true quality education.

If the government genuinely believes in free quality education, then leaders must demonstrate confidence in the system through action, not speeches. Public trust cannot grow while the political class continues escaping the very institutions ordinary citizens are forced to endure.

Hon. Alpha Ben Mansaray’s proposal has therefore exposed more than an education problem. It has revealed a crisis of leadership, accountability, and honesty within public governance itself.

Until Sierra Leone’s leaders are willing to share the same educational reality as the people they govern, promises of education reform may continue sounding more like political theatre than genuine national transformation.