By Mabinty Kamara
The National Commission for Children (NCC) has in a press release urged government to announce at the earliest possible time a date for the National Primary School Examination (NPSE) to take place.
The NCC described the postponement of the NPSE that was supposed to take place on May 7 as unfair to the children, their families and teachers.
The examination has always been taking place on the first Saturday of May every year, except in some exceptional circumstances when it had been postponed to the following Saturday of the same month. But the 2016 NPSE was postponed indefinitely just days before the D-Day. This caused a lot of dismay and many unanswered questions are being asked.
The NCC is a statutory body established to monitor and coordinate the implementation of the convention on the rights of the child, (CRC), the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC), to oversee the implementation of Part 3 of the Child Rights Act (CRA) and to advise government on policies aimed at the improvement of the condition and welfare of the children in sierra Leone.
The Commission is of the view that the postponement have the tendency of affecting the children psychologically and that it will make them lose the energy and confidence they had for the examination after spending long months preparing for it.
It is important to note that some of the children have already missed one academic year due to the Ebola epidemic and are again subjected to undue delay in making the transition to secondary school, noted the release.
“Children cannot continue to pay the price,” it stated.
The Commission is calling on the office of the President and other relevant authorities, especially the education sector, to salvage the situation and ensure that the over one hundred thousand children in the country who are supposed to take the exams do not surfer because of this decision.
“As a country that is a signatory to the convention of the right of the child and the African charter, the best interest of the child must be a national priority,” it said.
