By Hassan I. Conteh

A new curriculum for senior secondary school education is to be adopted soon in all government schools across Sierra Leone by September this year.

The Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education (MBSSE) will be unveiling its Basic Education Curricula and Syllabi for pupils in Sierra Leone.

The curriculum is developed for Sierra Leonean school-goers to be able to catch up with the modern trend in high school education around the world.

This represents a good footing for the country’s educational system especially at the elementary stages when young learners deserve to be given a rocky foundation.

Most schools in Sierra Leone will start doing new subjects under the new universal curriculum.

While the old tripartite streams: Arts, Commercial and Sciences will have gone by September when schools are expected to open, pupils will now have choices to select from the five new courses in the new academic year, starting September, 2023-2024.

The new syllabi will comprise: Science and Technology; Language and Literature; Social and Cultural Studies; Economics; Business and Entrepreneurship; and Mathematics and Numeracy.

The above are the five new courses which will replace the three old streams: Arts, Science and Commercial in Sierra Leone’s senior secondary education system. The junior secondary school system starts from JSS1 to JSS3.

While, the senior secondary school category spans from SS1 to SS3.

“We trained education stakeholders for their involvement in the implementation of the SSS Curriculum Framework and its 76 Subject Syllabuses. We’ve read and review books provided by partners for approval before they go to our schools,” says, Mr. Osman Kamara, Director of Research and Curriculum Development at MBSSE.

The new Basic Education Curricula and Syllabi runs for a three year SS cycle and it is designed to help teachers and schools to be able to implement it.

Mr. Kamara and other academics are concerned about pupils doing compulsory subjects that restrict learners to be able to discover their hidden potentials.

But he considers that the new syllabi will aim at giving young learners the “right-based skills” which will enable them to contribute meaningfully to their society and the nation.

He said it is developed to empower school-going children to acquire 21st learning skills such as in the areas of science, technology, entrepreneurship, business, language, information and communication.

However, since sub-Sahara Africa is blessed with distinctive Western colonial languages, MBSSE should ensure, now more than ever, that French is compulsorily taught in schools across Sierra Leone.

This is because French is spoken by at least 29 countries out of the 54 countries on African continent.

21 of the French-speaking countries are known as Francophone countries, according to a research seen at frenchside.co.za (List of French Speaking Countries in Africa).

About 9 countries are French speakers in West Africa with just 5 are English speakers in which Sierra Leone is among.

Most of the Francophone speaking countries in Africa were colonized by France during the colonial periods between 1950s and 1980s.

Sierra Leone being a British colonial nation which became a British Crown colony in 1808 had never taken French language as official language spoken by Sierra Leoneans along with English language which is the country’s lingua franca.

It’s high time Sierra Leoneans’ school learners learnt French in schools as a core subject. Learners in schools of the various five streams must be encouraged to speak French fluently.

Learning to speak French and other Western colonial languages is practically important in today’s 21st century revolution.

Modern times now demand savvy skills in multi-lingualism, the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers.

Nowadays, the world’s economy is driven by information knowledge and technology.

Our interactions with people all over the world have now been altered completely than in the past.

Our social and cultural lifestyles are being influenced by media-tech platforms which now require one’s thorough understanding and acquisition of language skills competency.

Over the years, most Sierra Leoneans have failed in this regard as they are denied many useful opportunities in Africa and around the world simply because of the deep language barriers.

And our diplomats may have failed equally to perform in their respective embassies, and consulates and sometimes even when they represent us at some world’s seminars and conferences.

This is also because most of them barely could speak French, or otherwise, with diplomats of native French speakers.

So they might in most cases could not adequately interact and communicate key programs and policies with non-speakers of English language.

The new secondary school education curriculum must now be a wake up call by framers of the new education act and policy to make it an obligatory for Sierra Leonean pupils to start speaking French and other colonial languages. Nursery and primary schools’ kids must be taught French too.

This can help Sierra Leoneans on their future foreign diplomacy and international relations.