Bunumbu Town, Peje West Chiefdom, Monday 20 March 2023 – His Excellency President Dr Julius Maada Bio has met stakeholders of Kailahun District, east of Sierra Leone, who call for the reconstruction of the Bunumbu Teachers College, one of the most outstanding teacher training colleges in the country before the war.
Former Chairman of the Kailahun District Council, Kekeh Sahr Lamin, recalled that the college was completely burnt down during the country’s civil war of eleven years (1991 to 2002), putting an end to tertiary education for residents in that part of the country.
He said that before 2018, the district had 855 teachers, including 231 women and 624 men and further revealed that since 2018 the district had had 1,768 teachers, including 530 women and 1,238 men.
He told the president that a total of 1,500 teachers had benefited from training on a code of conduct, 500 were trained on professional standards and a total of 10 chiefdoms were benefiting from the school feeding programme.
“His Excellency, the district has a total of 217 preschools, of which 61,823 children are benefiting, with an increase of 3,812 in preschool enrollment, 32,344 in primary schools, 10,780 in junior secondary schools, and 13,347 in senior secondary schools. Before 2018, the district had a total of 161 approved schools, but since your government was elected, the number has increased to 275. In the last five years, a total of 18 schools have been constructed in the district by the government,” he said.
Paramount Chiefs of Yawei, Penguia, Pejei West, Peje Bongre, and Jahn Chiefdoms, also pleaded with President Bio to speed up the construction of the Bunumbu Teachers College. They said their children had always traveled long distances to be educated. They also appealed for the construction of the road linking the district with Kono and major roads to other chiefdoms and important towns in that part of the country.
Paramount Chief of Jahn Chiefdom, PC Musa Foday Gbogboto II, while updating President Bio in Gbeika, said that that was the first time in the history of their chiefdom a sitting president had visited them. He added that the township had pipe-borne water, a functional junior secondary school that was yet to be approved and a cocoa processing center. He said they were in dire need of a preschool, a youth center, and a bigger health center.
President Julius Maada Bio assured the Kailahun people that all arrangements for the construction of Bunumbu College had been completed, adding that before the elections, the engineering team would visit the Paramount Chief for the commencement of work on the site.
He also assured of the construction of the road linking Kono with Kailahun district and other major roads in the district and announced that the First Lady, Her Excellency Fatima Maada Bio, would construct the preschool in Jaa, engage with the women in addressing their major concerns. He also revealed that he would construct youth centers in some parts of the district.
For more information: State House Media and Communications Unit
