SPENDING on education in Sierra Leone has risen from 11 per cent to 22 per cent of the country’s annual budget since the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) government came to power in 2018, President Julius Bio has said.
‘Since assuming political leadership in May 2018, rather than focusing on digging in the ground and mining the natural resources – like diamonds – that Sierra Leone is renowned for, our New Direction Agenda focuses on nurturing the potential of our children and then mining their talents to become productive citizens,’ he said.
‘Investing in quality education for the future generation is the most valuable and the only truly renewable resource in the world today.
‘My government’s New Direction Agenda is premised on what I like to call the “Sierra Leone Brain Mining Company (SLBMC)” – we nurture the talents and would eventually mine the full potential of every child in Sierra Leone,’ he said.
Bio was speaking at the House of Lords earlier this week about how he has managed to lead Sierra Leone since 2018.
Acknowledging the disruptions caused by the pandemic and the current war in Ukraine, Bio said these had not weakened his government’s resolve to keep investing in human capital development and building sustainable education systems.
‘I am proud to say that despite these global challenges, our investment in education increased from 11 per cent to 22 per cent of our annual budgetary allocation to support primary, secondary, higher, technical and vocational education and training,’ Bio told the British politicians.
‘My government’s flagship Free Quality School Education programme caters to two million pupils nationwide,’ he added.
Bio said over 600,000 additional children, especially girls, accessed schools in 2021 and over 5,000 additional qualified teachers were recruited and consequently the country recorded a higher success rate in public examinations at all levels.
This was in addition to ‘improving school governance, building more school infrastructure, expanding school feeding, accelerating the use of technology and innovation in education delivery and management, publishing developmentally appropriate learning resources and materials and implementing a new school curriculum’.
‘My government particularly takes the education of girls very seriously.
‘As a result of our policy assuring free STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths] education for girls, we have recorded ground-breaking numbers of girls who are now opting to study STEM disciplines and doing exceptionally well,’ Bio said
‘Many parents no longer resist sending their daughters to school, knowing that our government pays for their tuition, teaching and learning materials, and public examination fees.
‘As we say: The future of Sierra Leone is female,’ he added.
During his visit, Bio discussed bilateral relations between Sierra Leone and the UK with the British Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, whose mother was from Sierra Leone and father white British.