Children have flocked to Sierra Leone’s classrooms. But can it make them learn?
Over the past two decades, school-enrolment rates have shot up across sub-Saharan Africa. Yet as few as one in ten children can read by the time they leave primary school . Politicians often underestimate the scale of this crisis, or waste money on headline-grabbing projects such as computers that do not push up grades.
In a push to improve crummy lessons, the government has asked five organisations to compete to improve children’s marks. Each will work with about 70 primary schools for three years. The outfits, which include Save the Children and EducAid, a British charity, will not manage schools directly and cannot hire and fire teachers. But they may spend up to $36 per child on things like coaching for teachers or catch-up classes for children who have fallen behind.
Sierra Leone’s experiments will also inform fiery debates about free schooling. Tuition fees remain common across Africa, especially in secondary schools. Abolishing them is popular. But spending a lot more money on secondary education can be regressive in places where, because of woeful teaching, the poorest pupils drop out before they get there.
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