Too many extra-classes, little time to study: How the disregard for self-directed learning process may explain the reason for massive failure in external examinations

In about four weeks time, our students in Anglophone West Africa would be commencing the WASSCE. Some for the first time, and many others for another turn. So far, the last results were awful and worrisome, to say the least. Some critics argue that it's the worst result since after the Civil War that officially ended in 2002.   In attempting to give possible explanation as to why the state of education (in terms of promotional rate) is retrogressing, analysts have propounded several conflicting and yet convincing theories. Most of whom blaming the lack of trained and qualified teachers; and others (call them conspiracy theorists) politics. While both proponents put up convincing points, the subject of lack of self-directed learning, I can say, has been given less attention. Knowles (1975, p. 18-- as cited by Bear A. A. G., 2nd November, 2012) suggested that self-directed learning as a process takes place when: "Individuals take the initiative, with or without the help of others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identifying  human and material resources for learning strategies, and evaluating learning outcomes."
We all need a guide/teacher to decode certain information. That's why we go to school and spend up to 5 hours in class almost everyday in highschool. But in the journey to acquiring knowledge, the greater task is left with the learner. The school introduces us to concept and walk us through key principles. It's then left with us the individual learners to explore further and understand them well- to ensure they stick with us either in verbatim or in concept. Learning goes further than accumulating notes and listening others teach. A student must take his/her extra-time to self-direct their learning process. It's an absolute betrayal by teachers to normalize extra-classes for students when they have all the time to give their best to students during normal school. In order to extort parents and their students alike, they deprived the  students quality teaching in normal active schooling hours just so they could persuade them to attend extra classes for a sum that will never quench their thirst for illicit money.
On the students side, here is what extra-classes can do to them:
1. It deprives students of their right to leisure: Leisure (adult play) is essential in reliving stress and promoting wellbeing of students (playing can stimulate the release of endorphins or feel-good chemicals in the body). Adult play can also help improve brain function and stimulate the mind and enhance creativity through puzzle and task solving. We need to encourage our students to have time for leisure after school. We are not training robots. Too much academic stress can lead to health complications and poor concentration of adult learners (see: https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/benefits-of-play-for-adults.htm); and
2. Extra-classes can kill the reading skill of students: students spend most of their time in extra-classes taking notes rather than reading the notes they have already accumulated since JSS 1 or (as in the case for those in Senior high) SS1. Teachers would succeed in confusing the students the more by giving them the same notes they had being giving in normal Schooling hours by different teachers along the line to JSS3 or SS3. They will copy the same notes they had in previous other classes over and over again without grasping a thing from them. They would spend one fourth of the night taking notes in these extra-classes, and get back home exhausted and stressed up for sleep. No time to study or revise on their own. They would hardly read accurately. In many instances, these students cannot read a whole paragraph without getting stuck several times along the way by simple jargons. If they finally reach the finish line, they would not make out what they read. We simply are not allowing them to have time on their own to read. As per the principles of self-directed learning, they should spend more time to identify the learning tools and methods on their own than relying completely on someone to aid them. Aiding should come at a point where they need clarification. But unfortunately for our own students, they literally spend 90 per cent of their time taking notes and lectures rather than self directing their learning process. It's when you are allowed to read enough that your reading and writing skills will improve virtually further (see:https://theboar.org/2019/02/reading-improve-writing-skills/). Their is no way our students can write sense or give something back they didn't not read. Listening alone is not enough for examinations. In order to give good performance in examinations, one has to be a good writer too. And the beta way to enhance your writing potentials is to read widely. You may already have all the notes you are chasing after, but you just can't figure it out because you don't have time to read. You are busy taking notes instead of studying the few you have. You stand a better chance when you master the few notes you have than accumulating it all and knowing none.

So I argue that in order to boost the performance of our students in the external examinations, we need to permit the students to have enough time to leisure and self-study under our supervision and aid. Teachers who call for extra-classes in normal Schooling weeks are not only extorting Students and parents, but they are also draining our students the energy they should save for self-directed learning at home whilst also killing the students' learning potentials. Extra-classes are in fact more detrimental to girl-pupils who are apportioned greater responsibility in carrying the house chores after school. As though that's not enough to exhaust them, they will be forced (technically) to attend extra-classes to make up for the quality lecture the teacher deprived them in school just for little sum. The need for extra-classes should only come about in the weekends to revise notes taking throughout the week for students' benefit. The ministry of education has a role to play in identifying teachers involved in these practices and taking the right actions against them. They are simply killing our students' learning opportunity and their future.
#My_Opinion

©Amadu Wurie Jalloh
® Students Analysts and Writers Network
®The Emmanuel Ivorgba Foundation

Menstrual Pads/tampons are a Need and not a Want for Girls and Women!!!

Ever since the first lady announced her move to support girls with menstrual Pads in schools, we have seen a barrage of complains and misinformation on the matter. Some unpatriotic individuals have  even gone to the extreme to download and circulate pictures of some unfortunate circumstances that happened somewhere outside Sierra Leone missinforming people to say the health complications are the result of the menstrual Pads the government would be distributing. Their actions are tantamount to betrayal of the state, and especially for girls and women whose very existence depends on how much knowledge they have and care they give to menstrual hygiene.
What is wrong in giving free sanitary pads to girls? There are times Sierra Leoneans' actions amuse me a lot. We can mix politics in everything. We hardly know what we want from our leaders. When it comes to free condom distribution, the complains are few. But ever since it came to menstrual pad distribution, people have been complaining. But sex is a choice (so condoms should be sold). Menstruation is not a choice (menstrual pads are to be given free to girls). Women experiencing menstruation or menarche are undergoing a lot of pains or mental pressure. They can skip school or be restricted into certain religious and social gathering because of menstruation. Certain girls who cannot afford enough to buy pads would have to use a single pad for the rest of the day or use some unsafe material for leakage control where they catch infections that will cost them a lot of money to treat. In some cases, these infections have cost some women their womb. It puts them in difficult position to bear children safely. Why are we so so blind to understand that girls need these things. How many of our parents or relatives would care to give extra money to our sisters to buy menstrual pads every month?
We should not be blinded to politics to the extent of not understanding our needs. Menstrual pads for girls is a need not a want.
Similar lies were created about the free soaps the previous government were distributing to households during the Ebola period to promote hand wash and personal hygiene. I can still recall how my neighbors refused to accept the soaps saying they are the carriers of the virus. I requested the person distributing them to give it to me and I will convince them later to accept them. I did try but most of them refused. At the end, I benefited a lot from the loaf of soaps. I could go for months without buying soaps. Their ignorance and naive behavior cost them their money. I used the soap and I am still alive and kicking. It saved me few bucks, too. We should learn to think. Let's be critical of posts we read or listen to on social media. We have a lot of unpatriotic individuals bent on only sabotaging good things for their selfish political gains. They would politicize everything.

©Amadu Wurie Jalloh
®The Emmanuel Ivorgba Foundation
® Students Analysts and Writers Network

One Belt, One Road Initiative: A Familiar Pathway for Africa?

By Amadu Wurie Jalloh

Introduction

2013 was a phenomenal year in the discuss of international trade and political cooperation. President Xi Jinping of China announced his country’s ambitious but yet strategic plan for a “Silk Road Economic Belt” and a “21^st Century Maritime Silk Road” that will formally be dubbed as “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI). The BRI will run through Asia into Europe extending to Africa (Mukwaya and Mold, 2018). Meanwhile, the Sino-African bromance had started since April 1955 Bandung (Asian-African) Conference where government officials from twenty-nine Asian and African states met in Bandung, Indonesia to deliberate the role of the Third World in the Cold War and the promotion of Peace, economic prosperity, and decolonization (Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State, n.d.). The aim of this paper is to assess the development implications of China’s BRI to Africa with a particular focus on pointing out the arguments for and against the policy drive.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), what is about?

China, over the past three decades has progressed from being a more traditionally agricultural dependent economy into an inward -looking state, and today into a global economic and tech-producing giant close to the United States (Cheung & Lee, 2015—as cited by ZiroMwatela & Changfeng, 2016). In order to secure its stature in the international system and enhance its full economic potentials, China’s president Xi Jinping could in 2013 reestablish 2100 years old Han Dynasty’s  ‘Silk Road’ initiative that aimed to encourage trade and cultural interchange between China, Asia, Africa and Europe covering 7000 km at around 206 BC to 24 AD (Li et al., 2015—as cited by ZiroMwatela & Changfeng, 2016 ).  Meanwhile, the new “Silk Road Economic Belt,” débuted as ‘One Belt One Road’ (OBOR) imitative or Yídàiyílù encompasses two symbiotically and unified principles that connects China to 67 foreign countries across Asia, Europe and Africa through the following means: the ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ comprising of network of roads, railways, power grids and gas pipelines that flows over land from mainland China in Xi’an, through the capital Shanxi Province and onward to Central Asia, down to Mosco, Rotterdam and Venice, which interconnectivity is dubbed EURASIA . And the Maritime Silk Road (MSR) that entails erection of network of seaports in the South China sea, Indian Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean that will basically link South East Asia, Oceania, East Africa and North Africa through the Mediterranean. It will basically target 4.4 billion people in those 67 countries representing 63% of the global population. According to Varlare and Putten (2015—cited by ZiroMwatela & Changfeng, 2016, p. 11) the central pillars of the BRI are “promotion of policy coordination, facilitating connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people to-people bonds.”. Kenya, Djibouti and Egypt are the BRI’s main target in Africa (ZiroMwatela and Changfeng, 2016). The initiative has two main sources of fund: the Asian Infrastructural Investment Bank (AIIB, USD$ 100 billion) and the Silk Road Fund (SRF) with a funding portfolio of USD$ 40 billion to be bankrolled entirely within the belt and road (Cheung & Lee, 2015—cited by ZiroMwatela & Changfeng, 2016). An additional fund from China’s foreign exchange reserve (USD$ 7 trillion) and its sovereign wealth fund (USD$ 220 billion) are also going to be utilized. Meanwhile, its biggest committers are the China Development Bank and the Export Import Bank of China (Exim Bank) with USD$ 1 trillion commitment made.

What is in this for Africa?

So far, 50 Chinese state-owned companies are engaged in 1,700 infrastructural projects across the strategic areas the BRI is covering valued at about USD$ 900 billion (Nantulya, 2019). Xi is also remarked to have highlighted how Africa will benefit from the initiative noting that “inadequate infrastructure is the biggest bottleneck to Africa’s development,” a rhetoric clamored by many of his counterparts in Africa (Nantulya, 2019). By now, 40 out of 55 African States have signed an MOU with China for the BRI with hope to complement their effort in strengthening infrastructural advancement, attract foreign direct investment to stabilize their economies and create jobs, open up to marketing opportunities, and ultimately tackle poverty (Dahir, 2019). Efforts have already been made to upgrade the Mombasa port, and the capital of Nairobi extending to landlock neighbouring countries like South Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Burundi to create a chain of connectivity for business ease (ZiroMwatela & Changfeng, 2016). Other remarkable benefit of this programme includes a 2,600 Mega Watt (MW) hydropower scheme in Nigeria; USD$ 3 billion worth of telecom equipment to Ethiopia, Sudan, and Ghana; and badly needed railway connections in Nigeria, Gabon, and Mauritania (Riberg, n.d). In general, the initiative will invest USD$ 170.7 billion into construction activities across sub-Saharan Africa that is hoped to accelerate both interstate and intercontinental trade boom (OECD, 2018). In a survey conducted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, result shows a potential increase in Africa’s exports by up to USD$ 192 million per year (Nantulya, 22^nd March, 2019). Meanwhile, China has also taken over the US as Africa’s single largest trading partner as per volumes from a trivial sum of USD$ 1 billion in 1980 to USD$ 200 billion in 2014 stock exchange worth (ZiroMwatela & Changfeng, 2016). As at 2017, for instance, China buys 95% of crude oil produced in South Sudan; 61% of mineral export from Angola; 36% from Sierra Leone, to name but a few (Dahir, 2019). Several other sectors have received boost, too. More Africans are gaining scholarship opportunities to study technologically advanced courses in China. Medical expertise from the Republic have also been providing support across the region when needed the most. In general, supporters of the initiative are with the view that this will help redefine global political and international order, and provide Africa its badly needed infrastructural gap to help enhance interstate and intercontinental trade that will ultimately unleash the continent’s full economic and development potentials (Looy, 2006). In a study conducted by Mukwaya and Mold (2018), results shows that BRI can substantially benefit East African countries by reducing the export and imports trade margins by 10%, increasing GDP in the subregion from 0.4 to 1.2 per centage points. They also argued that the initiative would also boost regional welfare of nearly USD$ 1 billion while also increasing net exports of countries in the continent by USD$ 192 million through intra-regional trade.

The neocolonial undertone of the initiative

Despite the assurance of non-interference on political affairs of partner states given by China (as opposed to the Marshall Plan of the West), critics of the initiative are showing no hesitation to declare the BRI a neocolonial drive to advance China’s military and political expansionism agenda that will further destabilize economies in Africa whilst leaving the region entrapped in debt burden to China. For instance, the decision to establish a military facility in Djibouti (East Africa) where major powers like the US and France are also based, have raised concerns over the genuineness of the intent of China’s initiative (Dahir & Kazeem, 2018; ZiroMwatela & Changfeng, 2016). The Red Sea being a doorway to accessing the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal through which 30% of world shipping activities take place, critics cannot quite push the power struggles as being the hidden agenda for global powers such as USA, France and now, in a conning manner,  China to establish military presence in the region (ZiroMwatela & Changfeng, 2016). Security partnership has underpinned global order since 1945 (The Sun, 22^nd August, 2016). In effort to seek recognition as a major global power, China now deploys peacekeeping forces in South Sudan, Mali, Liberia, and Democratic Republic of Congo—making Africa a playground for flexing its muscular capability (Dahir & Kazeem, 2018). A French newspaper called Le Monde also released a document in 2017 accusing China of spying on the African Union headquarters in Ethiopia through a computer networking system that it gifted and programmed for the Union in 2012 (Dahir, 30^th January, 2018). Critics also fear that China is luring Africa into the so called ‘debt trap.’ They have used the experience of Sri Lanka who in 2017 had to transfer ownership of Hambantota Port to Chinese state-owned companies on a 99-year lease for failure to payback infrastructural loan. Pakistan were subjected to similar treatment on a 40 years lease with Chinese partner retaining 90% of its revenue (Nantulya, 22^nd March, 2019). In 2019, for instance, following a warning by Ugandan Auditor general over huge external debt distress incurred by the country and the risk that circumstances agreed upon for loans place on the country’s sovereign assets, neighbouring Kenya’s parliament opened an investigation into the conditions under which strategic Indian Ocean port of Mombasa would have been used as collateral for loan granted to its government by China’s Exim Bank to construct the Mombasa to Nairobi railway (Nantulya, 22^nd March, 2019).

Conclusion

Like any other development intervention, we can see that the gives and takes of the BRI are quite compelling a political and economic debate. In conclusion, with critical examination, one could see a bit of a discord between the rhetoric regarding the BRI and the agenda to provide Africa with an alternative pathway to genuine development different from its experience with Western hegemonic powers that has reduced the continent to barely resource producing and loan seeking and debt accruing continent with no sovereignty.

 Reference

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 Dahir A. L. & Kazeem Y. (7^th March, 2018). China is pushing Africa into debt, says America’s top diplomat, retrieved from: https://qz.com/africa/1223412/china-pushes-africa-into-debt-says-trumps-top-diplomat-rex-tillerson/ (13^th February, 2020)

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