On the front line of an education revolution in Sierra Leone

MAKENI, Sierra Leone — Any exasperated dad or mum is likely to be forgiven for wanting a daughter like Alimatu Sesay, a extremely motivated 16-year-old who can’t afford schoolbooks however borrows them from wealthier classmates and research the texts exterior each night time with a flashlight as a result of her tiny house is crowded and has no electrical energy.

Alimatu is one in all seven youngsters, her dad died years in the past, her mother is illiterate and she or he typically should go with out consuming all day when cash is tight. However she is an excellent pupil on a path to satisfy her dream of changing into a lawyer due to an schooling revolution underway right here in Sierra Leone. (And when she turns into a lawyer, she says, she’s going to purchase her mother a home.)

In 2018, the federal government right here banned faculty charges, which had saved Alimatu’s mother and father and hundreds of thousands of others from attending any faculty in any respect. Authorities have additionally outlawed corporal punishment in colleges and ramped up funding in schooling, with greater than 20% of the nationwide finances allotted to instructor pay, faculty renovation and different schooling bills. The consequence has been a 50% improve in enrollment and in addition an obvious enchancment within the high quality of schooling, with impoverished youngsters benefiting essentially the most.

Sierra Leone might supply a mannequin for the way even a really poor nation, nonetheless recovering from an Ebola outbreak in 2014-16 that adopted a very brutal 11-year civil struggle, can by sheer dedication and management make education extra equal. The USA and different international locations might be taught a factor or two within the ramshackle colleges of Sierra Leone.

But Sierra Leone’s grand experiment in promising “free high quality faculty” can be maddeningly incomplete.

Alongside a rural street in northern Sierra Leone, I noticed a number of youngsters doing farm work on a faculty day. I chatted with them, and it appeared that one cause they skip faculty is that they’re recurrently caned on the behind in entrance of the category for failing to pay the charges.

Caned? For failing to pay faculty charges within the public faculty system? Isn’t that each one unlawful?

Issa, 16, shrugged. “I’m afraid to inform the instructor it’s unlawful,” he stated. “I’d be thrown out of faculty.”

Sierra Leone is tackling academic issues in methods which can be daring and promising, however the pronouncements within the capital haven’t reached Issa’s village. A college official will come to the classroom, he stated, name the youngsters who’re behind on charges to come back ahead and whip every of them in entrance of all the class with six strokes of a stick.

My coronary heart broke for a lady, Adamasay, 13, whose mom died this faculty 12 months. In consequence, she will’t pay the charges — so she is flogged in entrance of the category, 5 strokes every time on the behind.

I sat down with Sierra Leone’s president, Julius Maada Bio, the architect of the schooling program, to ask about what I had seen. He seemed pained — however didn’t deny it. He emphasised that change takes time and that the federal government is dedicated to ending these abuses.

In the meantime, Alimatu is flourishing in class however has only one faculty uniform, 2 years previous, that should final another 12 months till she graduates. Her solely pair of socks is the one which got here along with her uniform, and she or he has by no means misplaced a sock — as a result of that might imply an incomplete uniform and exclusion from faculty.

We should always all have youngsters like Alimatu who by no means lose a sock — and who’ve a path ahead to realize their goals. I hope the schooling revolution right here in Sierra Leone will stay as much as its promise and show contagious overseas, giving youngsters like Alimatu in all international locations the chance to get an schooling to remodel their lives and their nations.

Nicholas Kristof is a New York Instances columnist.