There can be no doubt that education is a crucial weapon both in the fight against corruption and poverty in Sierra Leone. It can equip people with marketable skills that enable them to find better jobs and hence climb up the social ladder. Education for all helps to reduce the discrimination faced by women. Education for girls demonstrably reduces birth rates by postponing marriage, giving them access to information about contraception, and about better health care for the family, especially for infants, thus lowering infant mortality. Needless to say, education also enables people to acquire information that is critical to the fight against corruption, including things political, stimulating debate and ultimately strengthening democracy and liberty[1].
In recognition of the above and perhaps in response to the President’s call for collective action to rebuild the schooling infrastructure and more important as part of its mandate to examine procedures of ministries, departments and agencies, that the ACC conducted a system review of the Ministry of Education with an aim of providing best practices for improvement. The review itself is a proactive intervention emanating in part from the Commission’s Strategic Plan which was developed in 2008 for a period of five years. Also the review was the outcome of a three day workshop in April 2009 organised by the Commission in collaboration with the U4- Anti-corruption Resources Centre based in Germany on enhancing transparency and accountability in the education sector of Sierra Leone and a managerial accountability workshop conducted at regional levels for senior managers in four ministries, which included the ministry of Education[2]
The intervention of the commission is indeed very timely as noted by His Excellency in his recent speech to parliament that “our country’s once proud reputation as a beacon of quality education is under serious threat”. It is for this reason the commission entitled its findings and recommendations ‘FROM THE ABYSS BACK TO THE ATHENS OF WEST AFRICA’. The report reveals several corrupt practices, anomalies and challenges that are seriously undermining the quality of education in Sierra Leone, which include among others; poor financial management (especially subsidies), cumbersome and fraudulent recruitment process of teachers and the absence of clear and coherent policy to guide key operations in the ministry. This article will discuss some very important revelations in the report and would also make some pragmatic but radical recommendations in line with the ACC’s recommendations as a way of complementing both the effort of the commission and the reform process of the Government
On payment and utilisation of fees subsidy, the ACC found out that the ministry of Finance lacks adequate and updated data on school enrolments, which are used in the calculation of fees subsidy, thus depriving most schools from receiving their required amount. Also there is no codified guideline for the utilisation of fees subsidy which has resulted in the misuse of such funds by heads of schools. It was also discovered that schools and colleges levy illegal charges, which put huge financial burdens on parents. In this regard, the commission recommends that a policy guideline on the payment and utilisation of fees subsidy must be developed, fees subsidy must be paid at the beginning of every year, and heads of schools must make returns on the use of such subsidies to their local councils before the payment of the other subsidy.
Another important issue identified as undermining the efficiency of service delivery in schools concerned the recruitment, promotion, transfer and the rampant absenteeism of teachers. It was discovered that some teachers present false documents, which do not reflect their educational qualification as certified teachers, thus not only draining the ministry’s budget but also undermining the quality of teaching in schools. Again, it was discovered that the recruitment of teachers is cumbersome and consumes a lot of time due to a centralised approvals system. Also, the report reveals that teacher transfers were effected between schools without any reflection in the salary voucher, this results in a problem controlling the transferred teacher. In this regard, the ACC recommends that all newly appointed teachers should commence teaching only when their ED forms have been approved and that the recruitment process should be decentralised at district level.
Perhaps the greatest problem with the Ministry of Education as revealed in the ACC report is the absence of clear and coherent policies to guide decision-making and to enable effective planning. It was discovered that there are no written policies on personnel and human resource development or on records and information management in the education ministry. As such the ministry is in urgent need of clear cut policies to guide its overall operation and improvement of educational service delivery.
The report is very apt in describing the problems facing our educational sector and attempts to provide practical recommendations for reform. However, if the real aim of the report is to make the system effective, efficient and with an increase in quality the report does not fully discuss some fundamental issues which are very crucial to the overall development and reform process of Sierra Leone’s education.
Going through the entire ACC report, though not explicitly written, I discovered that the use of large bureaucracies in educational service delivery in Sierra Leon is a fundamental problem undermining the quality of education. The provision of education has been entrusted to the Ministry of Education, without asking the obvious question whether such a centralised bureaucracy is the right instrument for supplying education. This has come about mainly as a result of the pressure on government after independence to ensure access to education for all. But even though we agree that this is indeed the duty of the state, it does not necessarily mean that education has to be provided through a government bureaucracy. As such, the results of centralising the provision of education in Sierra Leone have been pernicious. A pointer to this fact is the quality of education in government schools cannot be equated to that in the private schools, thus compelling parents to undergo great financial hardships to send their children to private schools which offer a significantly better education.
One problem that is glaring with the provision of education through centralised bureaucracy like that of the Ministry of Education is that it overburdens the Minister as he is responsible for designing and implementing policies, recruitment and monitoring of teachers and other supporting staffs, monitoring the management and operations of schools and colleges and a host of other tasks to name but a few. The task is so daunting that no wonder even after two years in office, the Minister is still grappling with identifying areas to address first. To start, he recognised the problem of ghost teachers and schools as an issue to be immediately tackled, without completing that, he is now working on overhauling the 6334 system. It appears that the large remit has lead to confusion. The effect of this is inefficiency and ineffectiveness in the entire system as has been identified by the ACC because it is impossible for such a large bureaucracy like the ministry of education to effectively regulate and provide such a service like education in a country like Sierra Leone
Due to the problems, it appears that separating the organisation that sets standards from the implementing organisation would be a practical step in enhancing the quality of education in Sierra Leone. That is, the Ministry of Education should be made to concentrate on setting and enforcing educational standards whilst devolving the service delivery aspect to some other bodies, possibly local councils. This separation of task would enhance the transparency of school’s financial management which is a major problem. It will also enable school management committees and parents to find it easier to control what is going on at the municipal or village level.
Another way of reducing the burden on the ministry of education and combating the fraudulent recruitment and transfer of teachers should involve the government establishing a separate body, probably a teaching service commission that would be responsible for the recruitment, promotion and transfers of teachers. Teachers should be recruited by this body and not by the school authorities as is the case now and posted to schools according to the teaching need of such schools. Such a commission will design and implement a guideline on teacher transfer that will discourage the current concentration of the most qualified teachers in the urban areas. This would be done in a cyclical manner so as to encourage teachers to go in the extreme rural areas.
Despite the fact that our educational quality has gone down the drain largely as a result of the ten years civil conflict, the educational policy adopted since independence has also contributed immensely to this down trod development. Much emphasis has been laid on increasing access to education for many with little regard to improving the quality. This is why government gives budgetary support in the form of paying teachers, providing fees subsidy, supplying learning materials, building structures, giving grants in aid to students and other forms of financial support. This tremendous government intervention has been very successful in increasing enrolments in educational institutions from the primary to tertiary level across the country, especially in the post conflict years. However, this policy has created room for the existence of massive corruption which is inhibiting its overall objective; consequently undermining quality mainly because it does not encourage competition. Basic economic theory teaches us that generation and enhancement of quality service delivery is dependent on many variables of which the existence of a healthy competition for market among service providers (in this case School) is only one- and one which actually has a positive influence if only maximising the national profit, i.e. quality education for all, is the utmost aim in our quest for reforms in the education sector. In this case, an element of competition should be injected in our education system.
The government can continue to make education accessible to all by still paying the cost of sending children to school and by also ensuring quality by adopting a more radical approach, different from the current ones. This could be done by replacing the direct budgetary support to schools in the form of the different payments to what Lambsdorff in his ‘Liberty the best remedy against Poverty’ called ‘the system of vouchers’. Under this system, government support would be based on performance. Government would set standards and would concentrate on enforcing these standards. Government assisted schools would not get budgetary support any more and would have to finance themselves. This means students would have to bear all the burdens of payments in the schools including the salary of teachers. The monies government spend on paying teachers and other expenses would be paid as school fees for students who meet the government set standards. And the amount attracted per student would be dependent on the performance of that student. These monies paid as reward for students performance to schools would be in turn use to pay teacher salaries.
As such a school earns based on its quality of service. A teacher who knows that his teaching contract is dependent on how best he performs, like what obtains in the private schools, would be dedicated to his job. A student who knows that his staying in school is dependent on his performance would work hard. A parent who knows that her child financial support from government is dependent on her child’s performance would dedicate much time to looking after her child’s schooling. Such a system would create a very healthy competition among schools, thus enhancing quality. Parents would choose schools on the basis of the quality offered, since the voucher system ensures that they could not divert money for other purposes, consequently minimising corruption. We must not forget that In a market economy, competition on open markets, guaranteed by its legal and institutional framework, improves chances to discover renewable sources and use them according to their opportunity costs. In this case, competition helps to promote best educational systems and spread the constitution of liberty
In summary, this article suggests that for Sierra Leone to move from the abyss and regain its lost glory as the Athens of Africa it needs a radical but realistic approach in its reform process in the education sector. Reform in the form of devolution of power from the centre to the local, creation of an independent body that manages the affairs of teachers and a competitive market in education. Such changes would result in a definite improvement in the quality of education and would increase access as the poor would be given opportunity to good schools not on the basis of money but on performance.
[1] Lambsdorff O. G. ‘Liberty-The Best Remedy Against Poverty’ Occasional Papers of the Liberals Institute of the Friedrich Nauman Foundation-2002
[2] ACC Report on Systems Review of Ministry of Education, July 2009