By Alie Samura
On Tuesday 12 September 2023, during the weekly press briefing of the Ministry of Information held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs conference hall, Tower Hill, stakeholders in the education sector articulated plans for the development of the sector.
Mr Conard Sackey, Minister of Basic Senior Secondary Education, said that the basic senior education covers three areas, primary schools the nursery junior and senior secondary schools, adding that they are trying to engage the formal and informal schools, those that are not going to schools and pregnant girls, to focus on school to build a better nation.
Mr Conard furthered that the recruitment and retaining of teachers and the improvement technic of teachers, has enabled the sector to develop, with some three thousand teachers recruited and put into the system, comprising an additional 27% of women teachers.
Dr Ramatulai Wurie, Minister of Technical and Higher Education, applauded the Minister of Information and Civil Education for this platform for MDAs to come and showcase their work, adding that the Ministry Technical and Higher Education is looking at technical and vocational training and also university training, with the aim of creating the man power to support national development in Sierra Leone.
Dr Ramatulai said that in bringing scholarship to Sierra Leone, it shows the commitment of the Bio government to enhance education, furthering that this scholarship schemes are in two ways, which is the national grant-in-aid and international scholarship for the grant- in-aid, disclosing that they have received 14 thousand applications from the 16 districts in the country, and that only second year students are eligible to apply for the grant-in-aid. She encouraged more women to apply for both national and international scholarships.
For the international scholarship, she disclosed that they have China, Russia, Algeria, Morocco, Hungary, Qatar, Greece, and Commonwealth. She added that these can only be accessed on Facebook page of the Ministry of Technical and Higher Education, X page techhigher and also notice from the ministry.
Alphonso Manley, National Coordinator, Civil Right Coalition, said that the free quality education is to eliminate the SSS4, and payment of fees for both government and private schools for the past five years, has been done by the government.
