Dr. Haja Ramatulai Wurie, Sierra Leone’s Minister of Technical and Higher Education is an accomplished academic and a multi-disciplinary researcher with focus on capacity-building and evidence-informed systems strengthening for national development. Prior to her appointment as a Minister in 2023, she was a Senior Lecturer at the College of Medicine and Allied Sciences, University of Sierra Leone. In this interview, Dr. Wurie discusses the Ministry’s efforts to advance education, foster innovation, and ensure quality higher education for Sierra Leoneans in alignment with national needs.
How would you assess the state of education in Sierra Leone since the launch of President Julius Maada Bio’s New Direction Agenda?
Since the launch of His Excellency’s New Direction Agenda, a lot has happened that has supported education and created a very strong foundation that we are building upon as a sector. We are implementing the Free Quality School Education (FQSE) policy which has removed the financial barrier in accessing education from primary to basic and senior secondary levels. The return on that investment has led to massive increase in the number of pupils and students accessing education at the primary, basic and senior secondary levels. We have seen retention. It is one thing to access education, but the other thing is to be retained within and we have seen thousands of young people going through the educational system and coming out at senior secondary and taking the entrance examinations into the university.
One thing we have also seen since the launch of the New Direction Agenda is that there has been a lot of emphasis on Technical, Vocational Education and Training (TVET). In other parts of the world, vocational training is accorded priority because they recognize the fact that it provides the middle level manpower that is a key driver for socio-economic development. When His Excellency assumed office in 2018, the Ministry of Education was just one, but in his wisdom he decided to have two ministries, so one will be for primary, basic and senior secondary education and the other for technical and higher education. This has brought to the forefront the importance of vocational training because before the inception of this administration, it was subsumed within the Ministry of Education but now it has been brought to the forefront.
What strategic approach has the Ministry taken to drive the human capital development which is a component of the Big Five Game Changers?
Human capital development is multi-sectorial. So, if I speak for my Ministry which is Technical and Higher Education, we have to build upon the gains of the free school education policy which is manned by the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education. What we have done as a sector and a government is to increase access to quality technical and higher education in terms of providing students’ loans. So, we have piloted the Sierra Leone students’ loan scheme for the last academic year and now, we are gradually scaling it up. We are ensuring that there is equity in terms of access to quality education and the key word for that is sustainable access. We are confident that the students’ loan scheme will be a long term solution to providing access to technical and higher education.
We have also improved upon the infrastructure because you need to create the enabling learning environment for the young people to enable them thrive and acquire the skills they need. What we have done in that regard is with the support of development partners. For example, Sierra Leone Support of Education Fund Project implemented by both Ministries of Education (i.e. Ministries of Basic and Senior Secondary Education and Ministry of Technical and Higher Education) received a loan facility from the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA), OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) and Saudi Development Fund (SDF). With these funds, as a ministry we are improving our existing university infrastructure. The main beneficiaries from technical and higher education of this project are the two technical universities we have in Sierra Leone — Eastern Technical University and Milton Margai Technical University.
What about capacity building?
In terms of capacity-building, we are mindful of the fact that creating the enabling learning environment, should be achieved simultaneously with capacity building of educators. As a sector we (both Ministries) have placed a strong emphasis on the continuous professional development of teachers (MTHE trains teachers to serve in primary and secondary schools). The same also applies to university lecturers – we are also working with and supporting the universities to complement their efforts in terms of capacity-building, by prioritizing applications from lecturers for scholarship opportunities (from our bilateral relations) and building sustainable capacity building systems led by the institutions.
We also want to ensure that every region in Sierra Leone has a university. With the operationalization of the Kono University of Science and Technology in the Eastern Region of Sierra Leone, we are one university away from achieving regional representation with efforts underway to making this a reality.
What efforts have been made to ensure that products of these institutions are globally competitive?
What we are working towards achieving within the Ministry is to ensure that when we train our young people, they can compete with their peers on the global market. And there are a number of strategies we are using to achieve that. One of such strategies is to look at the curriculum whilst asking the question – Are we training in a demand-led manner for the local labour market? Recently, we conducted a labour market survey supported by the World Bank for seven sectors that we have called growth sectors and these are linked directly to our National Development Plan.
To what extent would that prepare them for self-employment?
One thing we intend to embark upon is to foster entrepreneurship skills in our young people while they are training, so that it will complement the technical side. We are focusing on entrepreneurship because we should be realistic and recognise that the current labour market will not be able to absorb all the graduates. But if we foster entrepreneurship in them, then we would have put them in a better position to become employers as opposed to looking for jobs. And when they become employers, they can employ other young people. The other skills such as soft skills, communications, digital literacy, financial literacy, are all the things we are working on to have embedded within the universities and vocational training intuitions. In addition, when we look at the current labour market, we have to be very mindful of emerging market. Everybody is talking about artificial intelligence, machine learning, block chain technology; we have to position our young people also to be at the forefront of that. We do not want to be reactive, we want to be proactive.
What level of support are you getting from multilateral development institutions especially on facilities focusing on technical and vocational education?
I will start with vocational training. We have received support from the World Bank, and that support came in the form of Skills Development Project (SDF1) but it has run its course and we have completed and over achieved the target. This project was designed to target about 8,000 young people and we were able to reach over 20,000 young people to help them acquire the skills they need to thrive within the vocational training arm. We are looking forward to building on that investment.
Another area the World Bank’s School Development Project supported us is in the development of a dual apprenticeship policy as mentioned earlier. Vocational training is all about hands-on training. You need hands-on training to complement what you are taught in the classroom that is why we are working with industry players through Public-Private Partnership (PPPs) to actualize this. The dual apprenticeship policy supported by the World Bank SDF project will support that endeavor and what we are hoping for another round of funding to ensure that we fully implement that policy in addition to building on the gains made from the SDF1 especially with regards to TVET governance and monitoring and evaluation.
You are passionate about achieving positive change in education by connecting it to national needs and promoting inclusive evidence-based policy. How far have you gone in this direction?
I come from a research background and one thing I have said repeatedly within the Ministry is that we have to support the universities and vocational training institutions to position them to support socio-economic development in Sierra Leone. And one key driver for that is research and innovation. I will start with innovation. I have been to a number of events organized by private sector players and the government and I am always inspired seeing young people identifying the problems we are grappling with at national level, problems that are linked to our National Development Plan and coming up with innovative ideas to solve those problems. I am always motivated to say if we create more of office spaces, imagine what will happen.
What levels of support do indigent students receive from the government?
One thing we do within the Ministry which links back to the government is gender equity, social justice and inclusivity. These are the foundation of everything that we do. So, when we provide access to education, it is through those links. I have talked about the loan scheme, and that we are going to be scaling that up gradually because in the year it was piloted, it was only for post graduate students. We will also be rolling out scholarship and grant aid scheme for female students in Science, Technology, Engineering Mathematics, and Agriculture STEMA. Of course, agriculture is our flagship programme and we have to support the government’s Feed Salone programme.
For inclusivity, the free quality school education is one thing that runs through the radical inclusion where regardless of your socio-economic background, religion and ethnicity, we have to build upon your access to education.