By Jia Kangbai
I just discovered that this year’s Independence Day Anniversary is all about praying. And honestly, Sierra Leone is missing it here again like many other African countries.
Many if not ALL of the problems affecting African countries are NOT spiritual; hence prayer is NOT part of the equation formula for development as far as Africa is concerned. Africa is home to the largest number of churches in the world but the least developed.
A husband with 9 wives and 21 children can spend all night at the church asking for divine intervention if he cares but if he doesn’t work hard and take leadership role the kids will go to bed hungry the next day.
Jesus himself knew when to apply spiritual and man-made solutions to different problems….and so when Jesus was confronted to pay tax (Mathew 27:17) and there was no money with him and his disciples,, Jesus knew he and his disciples will be asked to go to the High Court; but he also knew this is not a spiritual matter but a physical problem. He ordered his disciples to go fishing , take out the money from the mouth of the fish that will be caught to pay the tax collectors. Jesus never said let us pray so that the tax collectors should go away.
Sierra Leone problems just like those of the 1960s to date have to do with poor leadership.
As we speak more than 150,000 students who are to take this year’s WASCE risk of not taking it because it was alleged they were *not qualified…and they want to take advantage of the free government WASCE examination payment system. Additionally also, the Basic Education Minister is on record to have said that schools that were left out was to be blamed because their respective school authorities failed to correct and timely submit entries for their schools. I am not here to profer exegesis for the government officials but it’s seems as a nation we are.missing out vital truth and information here. Listening to excerpts from a meeting of parliamentarians, Basic Education Ministry and WAEC officials today left me wondering who is to be blamed for this mess.
Last year the number of prepared WAEC-candidates who were prevented from taking the exam was around 50,000.
Genuine as the above excuses may appear but it is a lack of foresight on the FQE policy formulators to have never thought that students/parents won’t take advantage of such system. A caveat should have been left wherein candidates who so wish to take the exams out of pocket during the normal schooling system can still do so. This is worth noting because we have seen genuine WAEC candidates that have been prevented both last year and this year again from taking this year’s WASCE examination on this same grounds. This is untenable.
This government came into power in 2018 on the trump card of a Free and Quality Education FQE. The FQE has produce a surge in the demand for education but this singular act of preventing some candidates from taking it on the above grounds is counterintuitive in all dimensions.
For instance as a nation we saw in 2023 when 65yo Mama Magareth who was living around Allen Town at the time was exalted highly for taking the NPSE exam. Definitely , NPSE is definitely not designed for 65yo..not even 20yo. And so when a 65yo granny goes on to take an exam meant for a 12yo that granny is also taking advantage of the government free WASCE exams payment scheme.
If the government through its kind generosity and because of the tumultuous economic global crisis is now facing economic challenges in honoring this aspect of it’s financial obligations one wise way to circumvent this problem is: let government pay the exams fees for those they can vouch for and those the government is not satisfied with are asked to pay the fees for themselves.
The government cannot be seen undermining its own FQE policy. In the distribution of wealth and natural resources free implies it is ACCESSIBLE by anyone so desire. In a resource constraint settings people are quick to assess that benefits are short-lived hence should be taking advantage of.
If at this stage our youths have the zeal and fortitude to pursue their education so be it.
There is a serious social problem if this WAEC exemption is pursued by the government. There is the tendency to experience a negative social effect in our nation.
This is the chain event :
1) 98% of the current kush addicts are youths mostly of the WAEC age group.
2) 90% of kush addicts are unemployed.
3) Even when people have finished their education they find it difficult to be employed.
4) One means of being gainfully employed is through attaining education.
5) School dropout, unemployment and peer pressure are the most important STRESSORS of substance abuse globally.
Sierra Leone doesn’t need to pray in this case for us to know that if we prevent more than 150,000 WAEC-prepared candidates from taking their exams such an action will lead to many social problems.
It’s even possible that the current Kush epidemic we are currently struggling with may have stemmed from the huge number of WAEC candidates that were prevented from taking their examinations last
Independence Anniversary ; what is this prayers ?…
By Jia Kangbai
I just discovered that this year’s Independence Day Anniversary is all about praying. And honestly, Sierra Leone is missing it here again like many other African countries.
Many if not ALL of the problems affecting African countries are NOT spiritual; hence prayer is NOT part of the equation formula for development as far as Africa is concerned. Africa is home to the largest number of churches in the world but the least developed.
A husband with 9 wives and 21 children can spend all night at the church asking for divine intervention if he cares but if he doesn’t work hard and take leadership role the kids will go to bed hungry the next day.
Jesus himself knew when to apply spiritual and man-made solutions to different problems….and so when Jesus was confronted to pay tax (Mathew 27:17) and there was no money with him and his disciples,, Jesus knew he and his disciples will be asked to go to the High Court; but he also knew this is not a spiritual matter but a physical problem. He ordered his disciples to go fishing , take out the money from the mouth of the fish that will be caught to pay the tax collectors. Jesus never said let us pray so that the tax collectors should go away.
Sierra Leone problems just like those of the 1960s to date have to do with poor leadership.
As we speak more than 150,000 students who are to take this year’s WASCE risk of not taking it because it was alleged they were *not qualified…and they want to take advantage of the free government WASCE examination payment system. Additionally also, the Basic Education Minister is on record to have said that schools that were left out was to be blamed because their respective school authorities failed to correct and timely submit entries for their schools. I am not here to profer exegesis for the government officials but it’s seems as a nation we are.missing out vital truth and information here. Listening to excerpts from a meeting of parliamentarians, Basic Education Ministry and WAEC officials today left me wondering who is to be blamed for this mess.
Last year the number of prepared WAEC-candidates who were prevented from taking the exam was around 50,000.
Genuine as the above excuses may appear but it is a lack of foresight on the FQE policy formulators to have never thought that students/parents won’t take advantage of such system. A caveat should have been left wherein candidates who so wish to take the exams out of pocket during the normal schooling system can still do so. This is worth noting because we have seen genuine WAEC candidates that have been prevented both last year and this year again from taking this year’s WASCE examination on this same grounds. This is untenable.
This government came into power in 2018 on the trump card of a Free and Quality Education FQE. The FQE has produce a surge in the demand for education but this singular act of preventing some candidates from taking it on the above grounds is counterintuitive in all dimensions.
For instance as a nation we saw in 2023 when 65yo Mama Magareth who was living around Allen Town at the time was exalted highly for taking the NPSE exam. Definitely , NPSE is definitely not designed for 65yo..not even 20yo. And so when a 65yo granny goes on to take an exam meant for a 12yo that granny is also taking advantage of the government free WASCE exams payment scheme.
If the government through its kind generosity and because of the tumultuous economic global crisis is now facing economic challenges in honoring this aspect of it’s financial obligations one wise way to circumvent this problem is: let government pay the exams fees for those they can vouch for and those the government is not satisfied with are asked to pay the fees for themselves.
The government cannot be seen undermining its own FQE policy. In the distribution of wealth and natural resources free implies it is ACCESSIBLE by anyone so desire. In a resource constraint settings people are quick to assess that benefits are short-lived hence should be taking advantage of.
If at this stage our youths have the zeal and fortitude to pursue their education so be it.
There is a serious social problem if this WAEC exemption is pursued by the government. There is the tendency to experience a negative social effect in our nation.
This is the chain event :
1) 98% of the current kush addicts are youths mostly of the WAEC age group.
2) 90% of kush addicts are unemployed.
3) Even when people have finished their education they find it difficult to be employed.
4) One means of being gainfully employed is through attaining education.
5) School dropout, unemployment and peer pressure are the most important STRESSORS of substance abuse globally.
Sierra Leone doesn’t need to pray in this case for us to know that if we prevent more than 150,000 WAEC-prepared candidates from taking their exams such an action will lead to many social problems.
It’s even possible that the current Kush epidemic we are currently struggling with may have stemmed from the huge number of WAEC candidates that were prevented from taking their examinations last
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