A thought paper by Eddie Finnegan, 22 April 2022 on the 5th anniversary of YSS' 21-22 April 2017 Improvement Planning Conference
1. Leadership and its Absence
Four decades ago, the late great Chinua Achebe published a slim book, ‘The Trouble with Nigeria’ (Heinemann) in ten concise chapters. Ch 1, ‘Where the Problem Lies’, begins:
'The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership.' (Achebe 1983)
Achebe’s little book probably did not win him the universal adulation his first novel, ‘Things Fall Apart’, had brought him twenty-five years earlier nor, unlike Okonkwo’s wrestling fame, did its sales grow like a bush-fire in the harmattan. Achebe had in his sights failure of leadership at every level, not only that of national or regional political leadership, but the sort of all-pervasive failure that really does make things fall apart.
I am not especially concerned with Nigeria in 1983 or 1958 or even 2022, though I did set out for Onitsha to ply my teaching trade in April 1967, 55 years ago, but Biafra's secession redirected me to Yengema for the next nine years. A dozen more recent years spent in diagnosing the trouble with YSS convince me that, while our problems surely lie with prolonged absence of leadership, we need not look for solutions only within the school, or blame the whole trouble on poor teaching or on low leadership capacity of recent administrations.
2. YSS Proprietorship or Patronage
With its Diamond Jubilee in 2024, preceded by its Golden Jubilee of Girls' education in September 2023, YSS does not deserve to be seen as a peripheral perennial problem to be cured by periodic patched-up solutions. Its problems for three decades, including two post-war decades, all stem from absence of real oversight. ‘Overseer’ in Greek is 'επί-σκοπος; Latin epíscopus; British Latin biscópio; Ecclesiastical English biscop > bishop. Curiously, ‘oversight’ can also denote or connote error or neglect – but here I refer to a supervisor’s responsibility over time for an important task, to make sure it is consistently done at least adequately.
Any programme to restore YSS should not be seen in a vacuum. As a Government of Sierra Leone-assisted Catholic School it is one of 18 (or 21?) Catholic secondary schools in Kenema Diocese, right across Kenema, Kono and Kailahun districts, or 'deaneries' in church-speak. It is one of 223 (or 269?) Catholic schools (pre-school, primary and secondary) in Kenema diocese, one of 125 Catholic secondaries and one of 1,148 Catholic schools (all levels) nationwide. Different sources, even within Kenema, quote conflicting figures, so it is difficult to be confident about school numbers across the whole Catholic Schools Network (CSN). It is even impossible to be certain about numbers given for Secondary schools, whether some of these are Basic JSS schools only, or cater adequately for the six years JSS1-SSS3, or whether many are hovering in vague hope in between.
The figures cited to the SLIP (Sierra Leone Irish Partnership) Education Seminar at Maynooth University, Ireland, 5 March 2020, suggesting that more than 50% of Sierra Leone's schools are Catholic schools, seem very wide of the mark: "In present time there are 1,148 Catholic schools in the four dioceses in Sierra Leone. This accounts for more than 50% of all schools in Sierra Leone." [1] This makes it look as if the Church is claiming nearly five times its actual share of the nation's school provision. The MBSSE's Annual Schools Census 2019, published in March 2020, explains that 56% of the nation's 11,168 schools belong to Missions – e.g. Muslim ( Ahmadiyya, Ansarul, Islamic); Christian ( Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, Evangelical, Methodist/UMC, Pentecostal). A much more 'hands on' inter-diocesan Catholic Schools Service, working closely with MBSSE's Annual School Census would give us a clearer picture of where Catholic school stats stand in relation to recent growth in school numbers, of various patronage.
MBSSE Annual School Census 2019, Executive Summary p.viii:
"At each school level, Mission schools are in the majority. Out of 11,168 schools recorded, 56% are owned by Missions; 16.2% by Private providers; 14.1% by Communities; and 13.8% by the Government.
at the Pre-primary level, there are 722 Mission schools accounting for 41% of all schools at this level
at the Primary level, the 4,416 Mission schools account for 62% of all primary schools
the 784 JSS and 306 SSS Mission schools account for 48% and 49% of schools respectively". https://mbsse.gov.sl/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/2019-Annual-School-Census-Report.pdf
If those figures (presented to the March 2020 SLIP Seminar) for Catholic Schools (all levels) and Catholic Secondary Schools (JSS & SSS) in the four dioceses are reasonably accurate, then Catholic Schools account, not for over 50% of all Sierra Leonean schools, but for something a little over 10%! Catholic schools (1,148) as percentage of National total (11,168) gives us 10.3%; Catholic Secondaries (125) as percentage of All Secondaries (1,090) gives us 11.5%. [NOTE: Part of this confusion may be because the Annual Census counts JSS & SSS schools separately, while the Catholic Network counts (most of) its Secondaries as schools with Junior & Senior divisions. 20% of Kenema’s Secondaries are JSS only. Possibly, Catholic Secondaries nationwide are closer to 20% of the National total of secondaries.]
3. Oversight by Diocesan Bishops as Proprietors of All Catholic Schools
While a bishop is Proprietor or Patron of all Catholic schools in his own diocese, what is missing is the type of umbrella or overarching organisation capable of interfacing and cooperating with the Ministry of Basic & Senior Secondary Education (MBSSE) through the Teaching Service Commission (TSC). Devolved Offices of MBSSE and TSC, of course, with Local Districts and Catholic Deaneries coinciding, should make for smooth cooperation locally, according to the Catholic Church's principle of subsidiarity.
Yet before considering how to address the Government-assisted element of Catholic schooling, what of the more fundamental philosophy and principles of the Catholic School and, in the Sierra Leonean context, the foundations of intercultural education, mediated through recent Catholic Social Teaching?[2] Individual diocesan bishops, Catholic school Boards, School Leaders and their Key teachers should be able to draw upon regular statements from the Bishops’ Conference that are authoritative, well informed, reader-friendly, accurate on multiple aspects and purposes of Catholic schools. So far, as the poet John Milton wrote four centuries ago: ‘The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed’ (Lycidas). Hungry sheep should sometimes get bleating hangry, if only to let their shepherds know that their sparse grazing lacks the nutritious supplement they need.
Although the five bishops of Freetown, Bo, Kenema, Makeni and Banjul/Gambia hold their annual week-long plenary meeting in the last week of January, apparently they never address the subject of Catholic education or schools. Nowhere on the Website of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Sierra Leone & Gambia, set up in 2009-10, are schools or education mentioned, with the exception of the statutory Child Protection Policy document of 2012. The Official Website of the Catholic Diocese of Kenema does indeed list 269 schools (pre-primary, primary, secondary), also its ten-person Education Committee – but nothing at all about Catholic education, progress in schools provision or news from the parishes or their schools; not even a word about Girls’ schooling, rights or welfare-abuse in male-dominated schools such as YSS with only one female teacher in 30 years. Can this be called pastoral communication, or even good public relations? A publication, such as Banjul's Diocesan bi-monthly Newsletter, would at least keep schools, laity and general public informed.
4. Catholic Church in Educational Partnership with Government
On their ad limina Apostolorum visit to Rome in June 2018, the Bishops pledged through their then President, Bishop Charles A.M. Campbell of Bo, to cooperate closely on education with the new government:
‘We are more than willing to cooperate in education because it is a fundamental sector in the development of any nation. Thanks to the efforts of the Missionaries, the Catholic Church has numerous schools that we intend to maintain in a spirit of cooperation with Government.’ [Agenzia Fides (Vatican News Agency) June 2018]
In March 2020 in Ireland, Bishop Henry Aruna spelled out his responsibility as Proprietor of Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Kenema, and all the Bishops' responsibility for the Catholic Schools Network in Educational Partnership with the Government. He highlighted the
'opportunities and challenges in exercising responsibility for the Catholic Schools Network in the context of Government's new emphasis on the education of women and girls.' (Keynote Address to the Sierra Leone Ireland Partnership (SLIP) Education Seminar at Maynooth University, 5 March 2020. see Page 1,F'note1, https://slip.ie )
Both these declarations or pledges were very welcome to those of us who for most of a decade had tried in vain to win assurance as to the ownership/proprietorship of Yengema Secondary School and the consequent responsibility for the oversight of its governance, administration, leadership and curriculum. But, however welcome these declarations in Rome and Maynooth, why do we not hear them made from time to time at home in Freetown, Kenema, Bo and Makeni? And why is there still no overarching, umbrella organisation to channel that much talked of Catholic Church & GoSL educational partnership?
Fifteen years ago, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (Pope Francis) called on behalf of all the Latin American & Caribbean Bishops for the
'restoration of the Catholic identity of our schools through a courageous and bold missionary impulse. For that purpose, we Bishops need a dynamic pastoral ministry of education to accompany national and secular education processes, to be a voice legitimising and safeguarding freedom of education vis-à-vis the State, and the right to quality education of the most dispossessed.'
Francis was not just suggesting a secretary or co-ordinator for Catholic schools in each diocese, or even a diocesan education committee, essential though that is. His dynamic pastoral ministry should have national reach with concrete expression in an Inter-diocesan Catholic Education Service. I first suggested Pope Francis's proposal in 2013. Ten years later, could the Bishops' new President, Bishop Natale Paganelli, arrange a 'Pastoral Ministry of Education' day during the January 2023 Meeting in Freetown? [for the 2007 Aparecida Brazil document see, www.celam.org/aparecida/Ingles.pdf Chapter 6, Catholic Education §§328-330; Catholic Educational Institutions §§ 331-340.]
5. Governance of a Catholic School
A Board of Governor's (BoG) functions include planning the school's strategic direction for a reasonable period of years; working with other stakeholders to (re)establish and achieve a clear vision for the school; restoring and promulgating its foundational ethos, identity and common mission; overseeing the school's financial performance and probity; holding Principal and school Leadership to account, while maintaining a 'critical friends' relationship with them. YSS has had a Board of Governors for the past twenty months. Its long-awaited reconstitution gave us hope of reliable governance, strategic planning and clear communication with all stakeholders.
The Principal will by now have a Senior Management Team around him. Whether this is a Senior Leadership Team is not at all clear. Those who have been seriously supporting the school – a few old teachers and a few old students – have tried since August 2020 to gain some clarity about the Board, the Leadership Team, the School, the Staff, the number of Women on the Staff and on the BoG. Shouldn't the Board be working closely with the Alumni Association? Shouldn't it issue a brief Report after each meeting? Even an A4 sheet of six paragraphs would have enlightened us. In the absence of minimal communication we are all still in the dark.
6. Leadership of a Catholic School in the Local and National Context
Following his appointment as Acting-Principal of YSS in July 2020, Principal David Aiah Njawa expressed his awareness
'that the challenges in today's schools are increasing in frequency, complexity and intensity which demands a new level of excellence from school leaders.. . . My first priority for YSS over the next two academic years is to enhance and develop teaching and learning processes within the school. . . . promoting a peaceful and conducive atmosphere for teaching and learning.' Some days later, he stressed that YSS is a Catholic school with foundational values and morality which all must uphold. [YOSA International Facebook Group, July'20]
Welcome words!
Five terms later, the multi-themed Seminar/Workshop of 28-29 March 2022, "in honour of Rev Thomas Raymond Barry, founding father of YSS", may have shown how YSS Teachers and Leaders can make those words reality by renewing Catholic Ethos, Girls & Women's Rights, embedding Catholic Social Teaching in the Curriculum, while making the TSC's 'Professional Standards for Teachers & School Leaders' and the 'National Teacher (Management) Policy'2019 the Bible and Qur'an of all CPD and staffroom chat for years to come.[3] That demand for a 'new level of excellence from school leaders' suggests again that any programme to restore YSS should not be seen in a vacuum, or in isolation from the Diocese, the country or the world of education and development. In retrospect, YSS's teachers and leaders of fifty or sixty years ago may have had it easy. Mere 'restoration' to the status quo ante bellum will not be enough!
Abysmal results, the Gbamanja Commission and the Teaching Service Commission
Back in 2008 the 'dismal' or 'abysmal' exam results for BECE(JSS) and WASSCE(SSS) panicked Sierra Leone's Government into addressing mere symptoms rather than deep causes of failure. Adding an extra year to SSS was predictably crazy, but nobody who mattered shouted 'Stop!' [4] By the time the new government dumped the extra year in 2018 nothing but five years of harm had resulted for the school system, including YSS. Abysmally dismal results for 2019 had top journalist Umaru Fofana calling for a national conference, 'not a bandaid or a bandage or a placebo'. The even more dismally abysmal results for 2020 WASSCE (4.5% credit rate in 5 subjects versus mid-60s% results for Ghana, Nigeria and Gambia) had MBSSE Minister Sengeh struggling to convince MPs that university degree admission criteria are not the only gateways to success.
Rather than overload School Leaders with the extra logistical and infrastructural problems of catering for a pointless 7th Year, the Gbamanja Commission 2009 and the then government should have concentrated on the earlier development of the Teaching Service Commission; an 'immediate recommendation' by Gbamanja but which did not come into being until 2015-16, with its local District Offices and Officers not in place until after the change of government in 2018, a quarter-century after the need for a teaching service commission was first mooted in 1995.
Distractions from teaching
No, Salone's procrastination shouldn't always be blamed on 'the War', 'Ebola' or 'Covid-19'. There are always distracting Election Years (2002, 2007, 2012, 2017-18, 2022-23) to stymie the best of educational initiatives, alternating with Population Censuses and Mid-term Censuses to tempt teachers and school leaders away from their real jobs, to act as enumerators or canvassers for weeks or months on end. For GoSL-assisted Catholic schools, their Proprietors, Diocesan school overseers and Governors should firmly support Principals and Headteachers to ensure that teaching and learning time is not squandered by teachers absenting themselves from providing the Free Quality School Education, for which GoSL, its International Partners and Donors have already paid. If YSS' Governors and School Leadership could make sure that no girls or boys are missing their scheduled teachers between April 2022 and July 2023, that would be a very moral step change towards that new level of excellence Principal Njawa spoke about.
7. Professionalisation of Catholic School Teaching and Leadership
'The Government, through the Teaching Service Commission, has a duty to safeguard the right to high quality education of every Sierra Leonean child by ensuring that they are taught only by teachers who meet the National Professional Standards for Teachers, and that the schools are managed by headteachers and principals who meet the Professional Standards for School Leaders.' ('National Professional Standards for Teachers and School Leaders', October 2017).
Too bad, then, that neither the Proprietors or representatives of GoSL-assisted Catholic schools in the Dioceses of Freetown, Bo, Kenema and Makeni took any part in formulating those Professional Standards, or in the group critiques and reception of the Final Draft document throughout selected cities and districts of the four provinces or dioceses, in the lead up to October 2017. There are many sections of the document – both of the individual standards and their contextualisation – which could have been enriched or modified through input from Bishops and experienced Catholic school educators, in domains of teacher knowledge, practice, engagement, ethics, school ethos, values and Catholic Social Teaching (CST). [5]
The National Professional Standards are adopted from international standards in teaching and – adapted to Sierra Leone's educational realities – constitute an essential reference point for how to manage and deliver teaching of a high quality in primary and secondary schools. The Professional Standards are set out in terms of (a) professional knowledge, (b) professional practice, (c) professional engagement – the three fundamental dimensions of a teacher's work. The 19 standards plus sub-standards for teachers and the 5 standards plus sub-standards for school leaders clarify the demanding performance expected at each of the four levels: New(ly Qualified) teacher, 5 years + 50 credits » Proficient teacher, 5 years + 50 credits » Highly accomplished teacher, 5 years + 50 credits » Distinguished teacher [6]
The theory is good, yet its implementation in terms of Continuous Professional Development (CPD), ‘portfolios of credits’ and access to higher qualifications will prove difficult for most schools. If Sierra Leone’s schools had really had m/any ‘highly accomplished’ or ‘distinguished’ teachers with highly accomplished or distinguished leadership teams from around 2013, surely WASSCE results in 2020 would not have been more dismally abysmal than those in 2008? YSS, with few teachers at or beyond ‘New Teacher’ level, must prepare for the long haul. It may take the lifetime of two administrations over a period of 15-20 years to transform it into a "Great School" - one of highly accomplished teachers and distinguished leadership. A realistic target date might be 2039, its 75th birthday, with 2024, 2029 & 2034 as intermediate staging posts, avoiding unreal expectations for its Golden Jubilee of Girls' education, less than eighteen months away, or for its Diamond Jubilee, thirty months from now. The two blind alleys of the 2015-2020 acting school administrations did not help.
As it happens, 2039 sees not only YSS's 75th birthday but also those of its Kenema twin, Holy Trinity, and of their joint Proprietor, Bishop Henry Aruna, Holy Trinity's Distinguished Alumnus. The remaining seventeen years of his episcopate allow continuity of oversight of Kenema's schools, in particular for the development of 'leadership in partnership' of the current 21 secondary schools. Without such inter-school partnership, it will be hard for management of individual schools to rise above mere day-to-day administration to become the School Leaders MBSSE and TSC have envisaged over the past five years. As we have proposed, the provision of School Leadership courses at Kenema's Pastoral Centre for current leadership teams would, in turn, enhance their teachers' professionalism and sense of their schools as Catholic foundations.
8. Curriculum Development in Catholic Schools
"It is the duty of the Bishops to support a pastoral outreach to the life of the intellect and reason so as to foster a habit of rational dialogue and critical analysis within Society and in the Church." Pope Benedict XVI: 'Africae Munus' /Africa's Commitment, §137, Cotonu Benin 2011 [following from 2nd African Bishops' Synod in Rome, 2009]
"These school programmes presuppose the human, cultural, religious formation of the educators themselves." Pope John Paul II: 'Ecclesia in Africa'/The Church in Africa, §102, Yaounde Cameroun 1995. [1stAfrican Synod, 1994]
"Ecological education can take place in a variety of settings: at school, in families, in the media, in catechesis and elsewhere. Good education plants seeds when we are young, and these continue to bear fruit throughout life." Pope Francis: 'Laudato Si' ' /On Care for our Common Home, Encyclical §213, 2015 .
"We can even say that economic growth is dependent on social progress, the goal to which it aspires, and that basic education is the first objective for any nation seeking to develop itself. Lack of education is as serious as lack of food: the illiterate is a starved spirit." Pope Paul VI: 'Populorum Progressio' /The Development of Peoples, Encyclical §35, 1967.
In June 2021, Sierra Leone's MBSSE launched its very comprehensive and detailed Curriculum for Basic Education (Primary and Junior Secondary Schools: Class1 – JSS3). Six months later, the Ministry published what is intended as a transformative 'Curriculum Framework' for Senior Secondary Schools: Building a Better Future for Adolescents (Dec 2021). https://mbsse.pubpub.org/pub/l914qw91/release/1 . It is a curriculum framework for the long haul. It will face obstacles, especially from West African Examinations Council (WAEC), the Teacher Training Colleges or Institutions as well as entrenched interests in Universities and older schools of Freetown and Bo.
"Senior secondary excellence in Sierra Leone is based on performance at WASSCE, as well as history, ethos and reputation. The hierarchy or list of schools with a reputation for excellence has not changed much over the decades, although new contenders have recently been topping the pass list for WASSCE." (page 16).
YSS knows that its own legendary or mythical history, ethos and reputation are as difficult to recapture as performance at WASSCE, though many alumni still think it's the 'University of the East', just as Salone is the 'Athens of (West)Africa' – what Achebe lampooned as a 'False Image of Ourselves'. The new Curriculum Framework champions a 'Multi-purpose Secondary Education':
"The new curriculum is transformative in terms of its emphasis on multiple purposes for senior secondary education. The new focus is not only on WASSCE and university entry but also on broad competencies for a changing employment market, as well as knowledge and skills for becoming enlightened citizens of the 21st century. In principle, this should reduce obsessive concerns with memorizing and reproducing materials for WASSCE. Instead, emphasis would now be on understanding and applying knowledge and skills." (pp 10-11). [7]
A school curriculum cannot be a haphazard selection of subject syllabi in three boxes speciously labelled 'Science', 'Arts', 'Commerce'. No Catholic school should go along with this random, copycat, anaemic arrangement as the last word in curricular organisation.[8] Could the Proprietors, Boards and Leaders of inter-cultural senior Catholic schools now grab the opportunity of MBSSE's New Framework to build curricula reflecting Pope Benedict XVI's
"pastoral outreach to the life of the intellect and reason, to foster habits of rational dialogue and critical analysis within Society and in the Church"?
As Pope John Paul II said, such curricula 'presuppose the human, cultural and religious formation of the educators themselves'. For this, YSS educators will also need Pope Paul VI's social progress (populorum progressio) and Pope Francis's ecological education. Did the YSS Seminar/Workshop of 28-29 March mention any of these curricular ideas?
9. Just why does this co-educational Catholic school, with 45+% Girls, have no Women?
Sierra Leone has the world's 6th lowest proportion of female teachers. The 27.9% figure for women might seem a fairly reasonable base on which to build, if this were 1961, but of the 23,134 women teaching in 2019, 19,192 were in Pre-Primary and Primary schools! Though good women are needed to lay good foundations, 37% of those female foundation-layers were in the Western Area, which in 2019 had only 18.8% of the nation's 1,897,536 pre-primary & primary level children [see ASC2019, p.14 Table 3-4, in ASC link below.]
Closer to YSS, from the most recent data available I have drawn ten questions and hints below for Proprietor, Board and Leadership Team from Table 3-10 on page 25 of Annual School Census 2019: https:/ /mbsse.gov.sl/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/2019-Annual-School-Census-Report.pdf . From this Table showing 'Distribution of Teachers by Gender, District and School Level' we see that, in 2019, for the three Eastern Province Districts, coterminous with the three deaneries of Kenema Diocese, the numbers and percentages for women teachers at Junior and Senior Secondary School levels were as follows:
JSS: Kailahun 47 women teachers (6.9%); Kenema 193 women teachers (12.9%); Kono 123 women teachers (10.4%); Eastern Province total: 363 women teachers (10.8%).
SSS: Kailahun 5 women teachers (1.7%); Kenema 46 women teachers (6.1%); Kono 29 women teachers (5.3%): Eastern Province total: 80 women teachers (5%).
True, Achebe might not go so far as to declare that "there is nothing basically wrong with the land or climate or water or air or anything else" in Kenema or Kono or Kailahun, but he would agree with me that, if 443 women could survive and thrive and teach in the secondary schools of the three Ks as recently as 2019, these female teachers cannot be some Eastern endangered species. So, what's basically wrong with Yengema?
Ten questions and hints below for Proprietor, Board and Leadership Team
If Kono had 123 women teachers in Junior Secondary classrooms in 2019, why were none of them in YSS?
If Kono had 29 women teaching its Senior Secondary students, where were they instead of at YSS?
If YSS in 2022 still has 0% women teaching JSS1-SSS3, what have YSS Board & Leaders been doing about it?
What are the 12-man Board's strategic plans for a gender-balanced Staff by the Diamond Jubilee of 2024?
Of 443 women in Eastern secondary schools in 2019, how many were teaching in Diocesan Catholic schools?
How will Diocesan schools recruit women teachers, competing with, say, SEND-SL's Girls' specialist STEM school?
In what way are Kenema Diocese's 100% male-dominated nominally co-ed schools safe learning environments for girls?
Education Workforce Management Paper, 2020:"It is imperative for the Teaching Service Commission to devise strategies to attract, recruit and retain more female teachers – especially at JSS and SSS levels where they can play critical roles to safeguard the well-being of pubescent girls and encourage them to complete their schooling. "Isn't it at least equally imperative for Catholic dioceses to attract, recruit and retain good women teachers for all CSN secondary schools?
YSS has been a school for Girls and Boys since September 1973, almost fifty years ago. It has not had one woman teacher for SSS students since 1992.[9] It had one Junior female teacher of JSS Home Economics, 2008-2015. If other Kono schools can attract, recruit and retain women teachers (the Cluny Free-the-Children schools "grew their own") why not YSS?
If Kenema Diocese has no solution to this grave problem in schools such as YSS, could Bishop Henry Aruna petition the School Sisters of Notre Dame (Africa Province, Accra) to send three or four highly qualified Sisters to Yengema to build up a cohort of young women teachers for this co-educational YSS and other diocesan secondary schools before 2029? The 1973/4-built 'SSND Sisters' House', after thirty years of neglect, awaits much needed refurbishment for their West African SSND successors' Mission resumption by September 2023!
10. ONLY CONNECT! Alumni↔Teachers/Leaders↔CTA/PTA↔Governors↔Proprietor↔MBSSE/TSC
Ideally, an Old Students' or Alumni Association of a Catholic School should be working hand-in-glove with the School Leaders and Senior Teachers, Governors and Proprietor. At least, there should be some reliable media for regular communication between Alumni, School Leaders and Governors. At YSS and YOSA, there aren't.
While the current YSS Board does have (?) three Old Boy members, it lacks an elected representative of YOSA, as required by the 2004 Education Act: 'one representative elected by the Ex-Pupils Association'. The problem with YOSA is that it cannot be said to be representative of the (?) 6,000+ Old Boys & Old Girls of YSS (1964-73 and 1973-2020). If the Old Students' Group based in Freetown/Western Area had gone ahead with their intention and Draft Constitution of 2011-12 to set YOSA on a firm footing in all home regions, under a central executive, there would now, a decade later, be a solid base for an Alumni Association to which 'chapters' in the Diaspora might be affiliated. By July 2020 it would have become, in some credible sense, a reasonably representative body for all YSS Old Students. YOSA would thus have been able to elect a representative to the Board of Governors, rather than make do with an unelected nominee. An elected representative would not, of course, be a YOSA delegate, but the fact of her/his election would have at least encouraged proper communication between the Alumni Association, the School Leadership, the Board and the Proprietor. This would also have been invaluable to other external 'stakeholders' such as fundraisers and (potential) donors. (Editor's note: On the 14th May 2022 YOSA nominated its representative to the YSS board of governors. This will be publicly announced once the BoG has been formally notified).
We mustn't, of course, make the ideal the enemy of the fairly good. Those few Freetown-based Old Boys (including Archbishop Charles) and especially those few Old Girls who have helped keep the YSS show on the road over the past decade - certainly around annual Founders' Day, the 2016 Golden Jubilee celebration and the Easter 2017 School Improvement Conference - may now be in a good position to work with younger Kono-based YOSA members on the Staff, with Principal David Njawa and Board Chair Fr Stephen Kumasi VG, but also with those Diasporan alumni who have come on board with YOSA International Coalition over the past eighteen months. This depends upon YSS Admin and YOSA (Homebase & YOSA International) developing improved means and habits of communication – oral/written, electronic including email, and on YOSA I.C. Facebook.
Some members of YOSA-National & YOSA International have made recent generous contributions to YSS restoration, with pledges of more to come. Yet, as Sahr Fasuluku's 'YSS Restoration Programme Highlight Report' shows, a lack of capacity or of readiness to follow through on commitments made does not convince one that YOSA's Coalition is either up for the big fundraising challenges ahead or can muster the capacity to make timely use of what has already been offered or delivered by generous individuals. The Restoration Programme which Sahr has been steering over the past eighteen months should be an integral part of the Board of Governors' strategic planning for YSS. The Board needs to share that strategy with those most actively contributing to restoration projects, whether infrastructural, maintenance, curricular, staff development, student support. YOSA has recently seen how a well funded project such as the Student Feeding Programme via Horticulture- Poultry-Bakery can become stalled through lack of local capacity to launch it to mesh with long delayed provision of potable water and irrigation, as well as with planting and harvesting seasons. Such a venture needs full cooperation of Board members, Leadership team, Agriculture & other Science teachers, and to be educationally sustainable it must be part of MBSSE's New Curriculum Framework [p.6 above; pp.9-10 below].
Three weeks after Sierra Leone's independence in April 1961, and a year or three before Segbwema, Kenema and Yengema welcomed their Catholic secondary schools in 1964, Pope John XXIII, eldest son and brother of North Italian family farmers, linked farming and science:
"We are convinced that the farming community must take an active part in its own economic advancement, social progress and cultural betterment. Those who live on the land cannot fail to appreciate the nobility and dignity of their work. It brings into its service many branches of engineering, chemistry and biology, and is itself a cause of the continued practical development of these sciences." Encyclical 'Mater et Magistra'/Mother and Teacher, §§144-145, 1961, 'Self-advancement of the Farming Community
"The New Curriculum is transformative in .... its emphasis on multiple purposes for senior secondary education." YOSA, YOSA International Coalition, together with the Board and Leadership must now become familiar with the New Curriculum Framework's direction of travel if it is to be instrumental in YSS's strategic and annual plans, not only curricular in choice of subjects on offer, but also infrastructural and in project design for funding by Alumni, External sponsors, GoSL subvention, or Aid agencies. The MBSSE Framework is still at an early stage, but the direction is clear enough as a guide to strategic planning over the next two years, 2022/3 & 2023/4. This should involve active representation of all those groups in our 'ONLY CONNECT' sub-heading 10 above. Whether a school can include all 5 Disciplines or Streams in its curriculum, or whether it should limit itself to the minimum of 3 or perhaps 4, depends on its capacity and resources including qualified teachers, teaching rooms, labs, library, and foundation preparation of students via the Basic Education Curriculum: Class1-JSS3. Board, Leadership, Teaching Staff and YOSA/YOSA-International must now lay the groundwork for the transformation.
The 5 Disciplines/Streams: Social & Cultural Studies; Languages & Literatures; Sciences & Technologies; Mathematics & Numeracy; Economics, Business & Entrepreneurial Studies. (a) Core Subjects (b) Applied Subjects (c) 'Everyday' Subjects are generated from each discipline making up a menu, from which a school selects according to its capacity. From that offer, an able student may choose 4 Core Subjects from one Stream with 2 Applied Subjects from the same stream, plus 2 Applied Subjects and 1 Everyday Subject from (an)other non-specialist stream(s). This gives her/him a total of 9 subjects.
A Science specialist for example, might choose 4 Core subjects: Biology, Chemistry, ICT and Agricultural Science; 2 Applied Specialist subjects: Environmental Science and Food Security; 2 Applied non-specialist subjects: Mathematics Applications and English for STEM; and 1 'Everyday' subject: Living with Religious and Moral Education. In fact, students may study and present for examination from 6 to 10 subjects. My example is of an able student, interested in sciences, farming, ecology, sustainable development, and open to living life as an active Christian, Muslim or thinking human being.
Much will depend on how the New Curriculum Framework is developed and 'received' over the next few years by the powers that be, but even more on the extent to which proprietors, governors and leaders are open to change and ready to undertake the developments their schools will need to rise to the challenges of new curricula, to "build a better future for adolescents".
Once again, restoration or transformation of YSS cannot be achieved in a vacuum - in isolation from Yengema Town and hinterland; Christ the King Parish, Primary and Pre-primary schools, or from Kono as a whole. Nostalgia for those old days of SLST or NDMC will never inspire Yengema Town or YSS to 'build back better'. Pope Francis, quoting the Bishops of Patagonia, Argentina, could easily have had Yengema or Koidu in mind:
"Often these multinational mining companies do here what they could never do at home in developed countries of the so-called 'first world' where they raise their capital. They leave behind great human and environmental liabilities such as unemployment, derelict towns, depleted natural reserves, deforestation, impoverishment of agriculture and local stock breeding, open pits, riven hills, polluted rivers – and a handful of social works which are no longer sustainable".[10]
Not that SLST/NDMC caused all the lasting effects of Kono's 'diamond resource curse'.[11] A month ago, on his visit to Hanoi, President Julius Maada Bio agreed to purchase 3 million tons of Vietnamese rice over the next 3 years, at US$250million, to supplement the 3 million tons of more expensive rice Sierra Leone will grow by 2025 while consuming 2 million tons of homegrown and imported rice per year. How many of YSS's Old Boys or Old Girls, or their sons and daughters, are successful rice farmers in Kono District or elsewhere in the country? To revise our old English language pronunciation practice drill of 'minimal pairs': "Kono is a good place to live "– or "Kono is a great place to leave" ? [12]
Three centuries ago, after a 1703-06 visit to Brobdingnag, Jonathan Swift's traveller Lemuel Gulliver reported on his talks with the Brobdingnagian King:
"He gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together." [J. Swift & L. Gulliver, 'Towards a New Rice Growing Policy for Remoter Nations of the Orient', 1726] [13]
BUILDING BACK BETTER – Our Challenge
We recognise that our school's restoration cannot be a mere replication of its past. Its first decades can inspire us in the lead up to our Diamond Jubilee, but the YSS of 1964-80 is just a firm foundation for the school of 2024, planning ahead for 2039 and 2064.
Our 1964 Founders would have built a fully co-educational school for Parish, Chiefdom and District if any Women Graduate teachers had been available. YSS of the past two decades proves all too clearly their wisdom in holding out for a Gender-balanced Teaching Staff. September 1973 saw the start of Girls' education; their 2023 Golden Jubilee must build upon foundations laid by School Sisters of Notre Dame (SSND Missouri) and those great Sierra Leonean women who taught with them for twenty years.
Our Spiritan Founders did not have a local Diocese or Bishop of Kenema in 1964, nor a Pastoral Centre until Fr Ray Barry CSSp built it after his decade at YSS. Today we look to our Bishop (born 1964) as Patron, a Pastoral Centre as educational hub for school and lay leadership, and a Catholic University (UNIMak) as sources of graduates and promoters of Catholic Social Teaching.
Until the late 1970s, YSS did not have one mature Old Student as a source of support, or as a returning qualified teacher. By 2024, our Alumni Association (YOSA) should be able to call upon the support of up to 6,000 Old Girls and Old Boys at home and in the Diaspora, encouraging commitment of at least 10% or 600 as active supporters, sponsors and fundraisers.
From 1964, Njala enabled wider curricula in secondary schools, in particular Agriculture. By 2024, YSS will need men and women teachers of all the Disciplines and Subjects which make up the Framework for New Curricula (JSS & SSS), to equip students for Authentic Human Development at UNIMak, Njala, ET-USL, MMCET, FBC, COMAHS, KUST, St Paul's Seminary [14] – and as the employees, entrepreneurs, employers and enlightened citizenry envisaged by the MBSSE's New Curriculum Framework.
The YSS Family calls upon alumni, parents, parish, school community and all well-wishers to support our Proprietor, Governors, School Leaders and Teachers in 'building back better' every aspect, vista and facet of Yengema Secondary School – which is a free translation of YSS's motto: Fortis, Fidelis et Justus. 'To Honour our Past, We Build Their Future'
Eddie Finnegan, 22 April 2022
About the author
Eddie Finnegan is a lifelong educator. One of the founding teachers of YSS under Father Raymond Barry in the 1960's and 70's, ex head of English at YSS and ex vice principal there. On his return to the UK he continued his teaching career and served as headteacher until his retirement. He is co-author of the book "A Teacher's Guide to African Literature". He is a member of the Sierra Leone Irish Partnership (SLIP), which includes Irish ex-teachers of YSS who have donated to various projects at the school in recent years.
In 2012 Eddie and other alumni founded YSSOSTFA (Yengema Secondary School Old Students Teachers and Friends Association) which became a registered company limited by guarantee in the UK. Between 2014-16 he formed the Finnegan Family Fund which made possible the formation of a large fully fitted and stocked library project managed by YSSOSTFA (click here for video) and 3 science labs for chemistry, physics and biology. Eddie and Irish ex-teachers have recently contributed thousands of pounds towards YSS' teaching and learning restricted fund for upcoming projects.
Endnotes
[1] See Sierra Leone Ireland Partnership website, https://slip.ie Search ‘Bishop Aruna 5-03-2020, Presentation...’ [2]. e.g. Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education: (1)Educating to Intercultural Dialogue in Catholic Schools, 2013. (2)Educating Today and Tomorrow, 2014; (3)The Identity of the Catholic School for a Culture of Dialogue, Jan-March 2022. Page 2 [3]. As with any Bible and Qur’an, these documents do have some mutual contradictions, to be resolved by the TSC. The August 2020 Education Commission's Research & Policy Paper, 'Education Workforce Management in Sierra Leone' has many useful insights into these complexities. [4]. An extra ‘threshold’ year, between Class 6 and JSS1, for Literacy, Numeracy and Study Skills, would have been useful. [5].See Page 2, Fn.1 above for three essential documents from Congregation for Catholic Education, 2013,2014,2022. [6].The TSC has given December 2023 as deadline by which every teacher must be at least at ‘NEW TEACHER’ level. This is to be based on assessed performance, not on any Initial Teacher Training qualification gained perhaps decades ago! [7] Transforming YSS via the New Curriculum: involving all the school’s ‘stakeholders’ and projects. See pages 8-10 below. [8] See Vat. Cong Cat Ed, Educating to Cultural Dialogue in Catholic Schools: §§64-69,’The Curriculum as Expression of the School’s Identity’. [9]. US-PCV Jaymia Ecker taught Science and supported YSS girls, 2017-19, in an extremely unsupportive environment. [10] Pope Francis, Encyclical Laudato Si’/Care for Our Common Home, §51; 2015, quoting Patagonian Bishops, Christmas 2009 [11] ‘Koidu Limited’, subsidiary of ‘OCTÉA Limited’: https://www.koidulimited.com Tankoro Chiefdom, Koidu. Caveat lector! Page 9 Meanwhile, across town: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/4/19/the-story-sierra-leone-artisan-miners [12] https://www.thesierraleonetelegraph.com/sierra-leone-faces-serious-food-crisis/ [13] https://www.thesierraleonetelegraph.com/wfp-assistance-relieved-thousands-as-hunger-levels-rose-in-sierra-leone/ [14] Catholic University of Makeni; Eastern Technical University, Kenema; Milton Margai College of Education & Technology; College of Medicine & Allied Health Sciences; Kono University of Science & Technology (under construction, Gbense C’dom)