Kenema — For three years now the standard of Education in Sierra Leone has considerably dropped to a disquieting degree. Pupils that sit to public examination conducted by the West Africa Examination Council do not pass as it used to be in the past. This has made it very difficult for our Universities and training colleges to enroll students with the required prerequisite. The option of those students that do not score the requirement in the West Africa Examination Certificate and want to further studies in colleges is the access program.

Today this admittance method is implemented in almost all the colleges in this country. Apart from failing public examinations, the pupils themselves have not been able to perform to the expectation of their levels.

Pupils in the Senior Secondary Schools find it very difficult to write and speak simple English to expectation. Most of them cannot write simple composition. This one is coupled up with the attitude of most of the teachers who most times abandon their classes. The heedlessness of the Ministry of Education in employing substandard teachers, and the monitory of educational institutions, the poor administrative setup of most of the schools is very notable. The school administrators neither cater for trained teachers nor concentrate on any disciplinary measure that can upgrade the standard of quality Education in those institutions.

The government too has not been able to play its own parts to ensure that the schools and colleges get all that requires. The girl child support project has halted. The schools, especially those of only female pupils like the Holy Rosary Secondary School Kenema, are suffering at the hands of wicked politicians who feel one strategy to gain the masses for their political desire is to continue the so-called 'girl child project' at the detriment of the schools.

These schools are under the strict monitory not to collect fees from the girl child. But the question here is; when schools don't collect fees from the girl child and government does not pay anything, how do the schools run to meet some financial obligations?

Certainly, these schools find it difficult to run smoothly; apparently a development that has warranted too much of illegal money collection by teachers. No wonder all of the schools have successfully implemented the payment of 'practical'.

One student of Holy Trinity Junior Secondary School told me, "The payment of practical for all subjects is now rampant. Last week I paid Le10,000, Le1,000 each for Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies, Religious Studies and other subjects. If we don't pay the practical our test papers will not be marked and will not score a passing grade. Our mental abilities are almost useless."

The parents themselves have been accused for the deployable development in the Education sector. Pupils are less cared for; none of the parents monitor their performances in schools. It is disheartening that pupils don't go to schools regularly and their parents care less about it. Indeed the parents themselves have contributed to the drop in Education.

To address these deployable issues Principals of all the Secondary Schools met to observe this year's national conference in the Eastern region headquarter town of Kenema. The occasion which took place in April attracted the Deputy Minister of Education, Lansana Nyallah, Professor Gbakima-Vice Chancellor and Principle University of Sierra Leone, Dr. Sandy Bockarie-Principal Eastern Polytechnic and all the Principals of respective Secondary Schools.

During the opening session, the President Council of Principals, Patrick Bankole Brown said "...CPSS has been drawing to the attention of the Ministry of Education the problem of poor examination results. Our first resolution has always been "CPSS is very much concern about the poor performance of students in the school system as well as the high failure rate of students in WASSCE and recommends that the Ministry organizes a national conference of stakeholders to map the way forward".

Various speakers blamed the past and present governments, Ministry of Education officials, the parents and the pupils themselves for the fall of standard in Education.

Dr. Sandy Bockarie, Principal Eastern Polytechnic while delivering his statement said past Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) government and present All People's Congress government are to be blamed for the drop in Education in this country. He said the SLPP rushed into implementing the 6-3-3-4 system of education even though no proper preparation was put in place, adding that the All People's Congress cannot stop the system because of fear of loosing political support.

This is a clear justification that the government has a blame for the unfortunate happening in the education sector of this country.

Professor Gbakima said "it appears that we have failed the 6-3-3-4 system", adding that they rushed into implementing the system even though we were ill-prepared.

He said a good number of students who now opt for vocational courses in our Secondary Schools do not get the required practical training they should have received because the schools are not equipped to adequately meet their objectives.

The Professor said the poor results we are experiencing today are indeed due to certain factors, stating "It is a combination of these and other factors that tend to influence poor result: The two-shift system, ineffective school administration, lack of effective teaching, poor remuneration of teachers, lack of parental control, poor teaching of science and mathematics in Secondary Schools, general callous attitude towards academic work by pupils, the practice of cultism in schools, and many other factors."

From all that the Professor and other erudite individuals had discussed at the Council of Principals' meeting, it came out clearly that this country is gradually loosing its educational status. But the question still on the lips of many people is that: who is now responsible for this unfortunate development?

As it becomes a national concern, President Ernest Bai Koroma himself commented on all of these factors that have dropped the standard of education in the country.

And to further know which of these factors is responsible for the drop in education, President Koroma immediately instituted a commission charged with the responsibility of investigating the causes of the problems in Education. The commission is expected to look into all of the factors and report to the President and people of this country.

Who is really responsible; the Government, the Ministry of Education, the students themselves, or the parents is what the masses are eager to know. It is expected of the commission to perform their duty diligently. This could be done by visiting schools in all the regions so that causes of the problems will be identified.