By John Sheka Tarawalie
The Freetown City Council (FCC), in collaboration with EducAid and Rising Academy Network, launched the School Leaders Programme at the New City Hall Auditorium on Wednesday 17th March 2021.
The programme is to ensure that by 2022, 100 per cent of FCC schools are covered by a monitoring framework that includes teaching, learning and safety standards and to also effectively support school leaders to improve school safety, the quality of teaching and learning and school leadership and management.
Giving the welcome note, the FCC Education Officer Rev. Dr Joseph Cooper said they are blessed because the government, in collaboration with FCC, now has 28 supervisors onboard who will be helping FCC to reach out to all the schools to ensure that they have a conducive learning atmosphere of learning.
He added that EducAid and Rising Academy are aiding them to make sure they also go out and give support to the school leaders in their administrative duties.
The representative from the Education and Skills Department at FCC commended Rising Academy and EducAid for collaborating with FCC to achieve its monitoring and mentoring programmes underlining that the aim of the project is to build the capacity of the minimum standard to improve performance in schools. He further disclosed that they would also join to visit schools to ensure that school leaders uphold their professional standards.
The Project lead at FCC, Alpha Bangura, said that the Council is working with EducAid and Rising Academy to provide support to 550 schools, specifically working with the school leaders and continued that they would provide support to schools that are within the municipality of Freetown and also working with partners to provide training for the school leaders to ensure that they put Cluster Mentors in the field.
Mr. Alpha Bangura added that they are providing mentorship and support to school leaders and that they are working with all stakeholders to provide training and mentorships to them.
The Project Lead from EducAid, Emmanuel Bailey said EducAid is a United Kingdom registered charity organization that was established in Sierra Leone in 2000 and went on to intimate that EducAid launched an educational network comprising teacher training programmes, free schools and tertiary programmes in Sierra Leone.
He also revealed that EducAid is jointly working with FCC and Rising Academy on school leaders support to ensure that the dream of the Mayor of Freetown, which is to transform Freetown, is achieved.
Speaking on behalf of Rising Academy, Elsiemae Melanie Buckle said Rising Academy started in 2014 during the Ebola period to teach students at a time when schools were closed and informed that they now have 5 private schools in Sierra Leone.
She added that they are happy to partner with FCC and that the partnership is to achieve the educational target of the Mayor’s transform Freetown initiative to ensure that by 2022, 100% of FCC schools are covered by a monitoring framework including teaching, learning and safety standards and furthered that they would be supporting school leaders to improve school safety, quality of teaching and learning and good leadership and management.
According to Elsiemae Melanie Buckle, the project is to ensure that FCC school toilets are clean, they have access to clean water, staff trained on safeguarding and signing of a code of conduct intimating that they want to make sure that each class has a teacher and text and exercise books for use by the children and decent accommodation.
In her keynote address, Her Worship the Mayor of Freetown, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr said she is excited about the project and that it is a journey that started two and a half years ago enlightening that it is a direct intervention to support a target that they have set as part of transform Freetown initiative.
She revealed that their 24 Cluster Mentors are going to be in the field observing what is happening and assured school leaders to see them as partners.
She furthered that they have just provided 200 tables, 3-seater tables and benches for two schools in the municipality valued at Le110 million (one hundred and ten million leones) informing that they are also doing 60 more furniture for another two schools in the Freetown Municipality.
Mayor Yvonne Sawyerr highlighted activities they have completed so far ranging from developing FCC’s framework of minimum expectations, carrying out a survey of FCC schools to collect data on current performance, designing an 18-month project to support school leaders to achieve the minimum expectations, recruiting and training a team of motivated Cluster Mentors to provide support in schools and delivering first training for FCC school leaders to introduce minimum expectations and school leader support program.
Credit: Owl Newspaper
