By Amin Kef Sesay
The Government of Sierra Leone through the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary School Education (MBSSSE) uses technology to address the profound ongoing teaching and learning crisis to deliver inclusive quality education.
The COVID-19 pandemic has indicated to the world that we need to reconsider the way we frame our education delivery systems if we aim to make it beneficial to everyone.
In Sierra Leone, the Government continues to meet the challenges associated with the ongoing teaching and learning problems.
Educational analysts suggest that one-third of the education workforce has not received any formal training and four out of five children leave primary school without what is required for foundational skills to further their study.
The situation becomes worse for children with disabilities, children from low-income families, children in rural areas, and girls.
The Government’s strides, under the astute leadership of the DSTI and the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education, has turned to technology to help stimulate progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 to deliver inclusive, quality education.
The MBSSE is cognizant of the fact that education technology on its own cannot offer a quick fix to these systemic inequities. Therefore, the Ministry is taking an evidence-based approach to align the use of technology with its long-term vision for transforming the education sector and delivering on the promise of radical inclusion.
In doing so, they have built on their experience of using radio to provide continuous learning and teaching during the Ebola crisis.
As a result, the Ministry has now developed a hybrid offering — radio, television, mobile and web, and print media — to ensure children can learn wherever they are and with whatever resources they can access. With this innovation, the delivery of teaching and learning using this framework is right on course.
Though there remain numerous challenges with the Hybrid Edtech for continuous learning and teaching, yet, the Ministry is learning, iterating, and delivering to disrupt the status quo and make sure that no child or young person is left behind.
The use of EdTech to promote radical inclusion stresses an equally radical vision for technology-supported education service delivery in Sierra Leone. Thus, the Ministry has started mobilizing technology to support stakeholders across the system — Government officials, teachers, and learners — to navigate change.
Plans of the Ministry for delivery revolve around data. In 2018 for instance, the Annual School Census was digitized and enumerators were asked to use tablets to collect data from schools across the country. All information on students, teachers, finances, and infrastructure can now be accessed through the publicly available data hub web portal. Earlier this year, Principals in senior secondary schools were provided with a tablet and basic training to upload their census data.
The Ministry projects that by the start of the next academic year, some primary school leaders will be prepared to use tablets to collect, verify and apply dynamic data to drive school improvement.
The currently available data is being used to inform cutting-edge geospatial and machine learning analysis to find ways to eradicate structural barriers to education. Teachers will be expected to play crucial roles in actualizing the Ministry’s unwavering commitment to providing free, quality education to every child in Sierra Leone.
The success and sustainability of this objective require the support of school leaders and district officials.
The GoSL through the MBSSE acknowledges the invaluable support of its partners including the FREE Project, UNICEF, EdTech Hub, Fab Inc, GRID3, Leh Wi Lan, and the Education Commission. The GPE has supported education in Sierra Leone since 2007, with an estimated $55 million in grants to date.
