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Sierra Leone: Our Local Languages Help Our Kids to Understand
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Standard Times (Freetown)
June 29, 2006
Posted to the web June 30, 2006
A.Y. Kallay
Our local languages help our kids to understand By A.Y. Kallay In Sierra Leone we are still struggling to improve education standards. The reason behind that is because of the failure of the Ministry of Education (MEST) to properly endorse using local languages as a medium of instruction in schools.
The 'Report of the Public Hearing on the Right to Basic Education' by the Sierra Leone Human Rights Commission (SIHRC), examined the host of challenges facing educational transformation in the country. Among the many problems - from poverty to classroom violence - it noted a glaring problem: 60 percent of school children in both urban and rural schools are finding it very difficult to comprehend the language of their instructors.
"An inadequate command of language, whether by the teacher, the learner or both, constitutes a serious barrier to effective schooling and education," said the report, which synthesized the views gathered from public hearings held in 2005.
English is the home language of only less than 10 percent of the population, but is an "inspirational" language. Many parents want their children to be taught in English from as early an age as possible.
However, "research has proven many times children who learn in their mother tongues in the early stages of schooling have a better chance of passing their public examinations. They are not disadvantaged because they start learning other languages and concepts a little latter," explained one educationist of this Country.
"Vernacular instruction lays a foundation of understanding, from which transition into second and third languages becomes much easier. Those who start by learning foreign languages often find understanding and conception of issues difficult and their performance is always the worst," he recalled. Sierra Leone has 16 official languages.
Every September, with the release of the national BECE/WASSCE results, Sierra Leone goes through a painful bout of soul-searching. Despite the government's commitment to education, over the past four years the pass rate has fallen. Nobody knows how this year's is going to be.
The SLHRC report pointed to the continuing problem of poverty, and race and class-based inequalities in access to learning resources.
"There are currently stark imbalances in the quality of education experienced by learners," it noted. "The disadvantaged lack the means and social power to speak out and claim their rights. Poverty reinforces exclusion. Social cohesion is not being promoted.
Townships, the poor and rural households are being marginalized within the dominant discourse on education." Teaching Job became in for particular criticism at the public hearings. Teachers are trained and -qualified, but the manners their salary scales are, is situation, which renders them incapable of implementing the needs of a complicated new curriculum 6334.
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"There is a big crisis in relation to the teachers.
They face problems of morale and poor motivation, which affects the delivery of basic education because it fuels truancy and generally irresponsibility," one PTA member said.
"The other, biggest challenge is the high number of trained and qualified teachers who are to deliver, are reserving their energy for private schools, where they go for part-time Jobs for a heavier parcel" The government should consider increasing salaries and offer bursaries for continuous teacher training programmes as new schools are in the increase. In 2005, the western area alone got over 12 new government assisted schools and we are expecting more this year.
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