Nothing impacts children’s learning more than the quality of teaching. In Sierra Leone, a west African country that has been ravaged by civil war and Ebola, a lot of hope is being placed in the education system. Yet, less than half of primary school teachers have any formal teaching qualifications. At CODE, we want to help change that by offering scholarships to motivated young women who aspire to positively impact children’s lives as teachers. We’re a Canadian international development charity focused uniquely on promoting quality education and literacy. For the last 60 years we’ve been working towards a vision of a world where every child can realize their potential as literate, empowered and self-reliant citizens. Listen to learn more about education in Sierra Leone and how you can help.
Our host Emily Prashad interviews Dr. Johanna Kuyvenhoven who is a reading specialist and the lead at CODE in Sierra Leone.
In this mini episode we learn about all the positive steps being made in the education sector, but, that there is still a lot of work to be done.
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This is Emily Prashad, and you're listening to a CODE mini podcast where we aim to provide you with interesting insights and perspective on the global literacy and learning crisis one question and one answer at a time.
Today, I'm speaking with Dr. Johanna Kuyvenhoven CODE Sierra Leone country lead. She’s spent 40 years in the education sector and 20 years working in Sierra Leone. Dr Jo welcome.
Oh, thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here with you.
In your time, and you have great experience working in Sierra Leone I'm just wondering personally, what changes you've observed in the education sector, because things have changed over the course of time that you've been in the country?
Yes, it's been slow, but in the last couple of, we see some really powerful movements for change in the education sector. Not the least of this is the recently elected Julius Maada Bio the new president of Sierra Leone who has made quality free education his flagship. That's a bold move because education, she is not a very satisfying flagship. It takes a generation before you're going to see the results. And we are investing in children who are vulnerable and kind of a quiet sector of the population. But he has made this his flagship activity. And so he's dedicated resource attention, and really pushing for education quality in Sierra Leone, inclusive of curricula and standard setting and, and funding. That's a very welcome change. Very exciting one. And then. His first wife, Lady Fatima Bio. She started up a campaign called “Hands-off our girls". And this is a campaign in which she is fighting harassment and gender-based violence, rape that women are experiencing girls in schools. And so we have a powerful duo that are facing the great challenge of supporting a population who are facing some of the hardest possible human conditions in the world.
So Bio has called on citizens to join the fight, to restore the pride and dignity of women and girls in the country together might appeal. Together Maada Bio and Fatima his wife are making a change for how people are thinking about education in the country. I also want to mention the exciting and extremely valuable development in the landscape, the formation of the teaching service commission. This is the government arm to the ministry. And since 2017, they've taken up the task of professionalizing, the teaching field. They're working for standardized certification and professional standards of practice. They're advocating for better conditions of service. Um, attention to the environment in which teachers are learning. Children are learning, but I guess teachers are learning to, um, also attention for curriculum and class sizes and all of these pieces that come together to make learning possible.
On the street, I'm sensing renewed pride in a job that's uncommonly challenging, but also really discouraging when you're working in the kind of conditions I've described. But I'm also hearing an increasingly knowledgeable public who are concerned about the conditions and circumstances in which teachers teach and in which their children are learning. So advocacy has really improved over the, over the years in Sierra Leone and not only support and advocacy, but actual money is going into, into the endeavor.
Thank you, Dr. Jo, stay tuned for more CODE mini podcasts and if you're interested to learn more about our efforts to promote every child's right to learn and read, please visit us online at www.code.ngo