By: Alusine Rehme Wilson
Sierra Leone accounts for 69.3 percent of illiterate male population whereas 80.0 percent of the female population is illiterate the Ministry of Education has confirmed. This puts the country among nations across the world with the highest illiteracy rate.
Findings of Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) shows that women and girls were mostly affected by the county’s eleven years civil war which exposed women to a number of abuses including sexual and other human rights abuses leaving many as victims of rape and war widows.
In order to redress such violations encountered by women, the TRC put forward imperative recommendations for education, skills training, access to justice and economic empowerment to be provided for Women by the Government.
Paragraph 495 and 496 of the Commission’s recommendation upholds that: “skills training programs should be provided for amputees, other war-wounded, victims of sexual violence, and war widows. On the successful completion of these programs, a business management course for running a small business should be run for the beneficiaries. Where feasible and appropriate, micro-credit or micro-projects should be provided to those who successfully complete all programs.
The Recommendations further point out that, “the Ministry of Labour should be entrusted with overseeing all reparations in the area of skills-training while NaCSA should oversee all reparations in the area of micro-credit and micro-projects.”
Media Reform Coordinating Group-Sierra Leone (MRCG-SL) with funding from the Africa Transitional Justice Legacy Fund (ATJLF) engaged strategic individuals in Mile-91 Northern Sierra Leone. These individuals include adult education instructors, CSOs, Journalists and experienced teachers on the state of adult education and skill training in the second most important town in Tonkolili district.
They dilated on their understanding about the TRC recommendations for adult education and skills training together with their relevance, successes and challenges, and why Government should empower women in the country to embrace adult learning and skills training in a bid to build an economically stable Sierra Leone.
In Mile 91, a teacher with 26-year experience defined adult education as an education meant for people who have not been privileged to attain formal education or attend formal schools. She noted with concern that Mile 91 has only one adult education center that offers adult literacy lessons and skills training. This according to Mariatu Fofanah is as a result of negligence on the part of government to establish skills training and adult learning centers across the country thereby letting most women illiterate and vulnerable.
She also expressed her disaffection over the non-compliance of successive governments to the imperative recommendations of the TRC with specific reference to points 495 and 496 stated above. She also believed there can still be a positive turn around to reduce illiteracy among women in Mile 91 and across the country if the government can put stringent measures to end early marriage, domestic violence and at the same time provide adult literacy, skills training and counseling for victims of early marriages and related forms of human rights violations against women.
Resident Radio Journalist, Fatmata Marian Sesay admits that the lives of women, girls and even aged women in Mile-91 who have never acquired formal education have been transformed through the only functional adult literacy and skills training institution in the district. This institution has been offering special adult literacy and skills training services to specifically woman after the war.
Fatmata expressed the need for government and stakeholders to provide the enabling environment for women to acquire education. She said that encouraging married women and at the same time convincing husbands to allow their wives seek adult education and skills training is paramount.
Henry Sahid Kamara is a Language teacher who has been offering voluntary extra lessons together with some of his colleagues to learners of the adult education institution. He commended the Sierra Leone Adult Education Association’s (SLADEA) intervention in Mile 91 but described their operations in the past fifteen years as challenging.
An activist Ibrahim A. Conteh said that in as much as the only adult education institution available in Mile 91 has incorporated peace education and human rights as core topics for its learners despite being a non-governmental adult education and skills training center, is a case in point for Government to be able to note there is urgent need to set up adult education and skills training institution to fulfill some of the imperative recommendation of the TRC.
In Mile 91, SLADEA has been offering free services to a number of adult learners and even young school drop outs enrolled to seek skills training in welding, catering, basic computer among others, according to the institution’s Coordinator, Abass Foday Fofanah though facing several challenges.
Lack of sufficient materials to conduct proper trainings, limited government assistance, high rate of violence among some residents limiting their understanding on the need to seek adult education and skills training are some of the challenges faced by the center.
Fofanah avows their Association’s commitment to continually serve mankind. Amidst the absence of government’s support, SLADEA in Mile 91 is still offering adult education and skills training to 35 out of the 75 registered learners at the moment.
He further highlighted how over 600 Learners have joined the institution though half of the number abandoned the course at tender stages and he recommended for government consideration to give facelift to SLADEA which has stood the test of time since it was established nationally in 1978.”
Mohamed Koroma a senior state official says the current Government has taken steps to implementing part of explicit TRC recommendations to provide adult education and skills training for women through the advent of the newly established National Commission for Basic Education.
He revealed that the commission is required to coordinate adult and non-formal education in the country but admits the literacy rate in the country cannot improve significantly without a massive and urgent intervention by the Government to accelerate the non-formal component of the new policy with focus on women and girls with key attention to those in the provinces, young school drop outs, the disabled, and the disadvantaged street children.
This is impressive, keep it up!!!
ReplyDelete