By Aruna Turay
Minister of Technical and Higher Education, Professor Alpha Tejan Wurie has revealed plans to undertake and command what he described as “a big coup” in the New Direction-led Government of President Julius Maada Bio.
“With my very long and successful experience in this office, I should not be called Minister of Education anymore but Commander of Education. I am going to make a coup in the educational sector and make it envious by all international standards. In this coup, I am going to be the Commander.”
He was speaking to hundreds of students drawn from various Universities and Colleges across the country, where he spoke a lot of goodies about how he plans to radically transform the educational sector in Sierra Leone for the best.
Dr. Wurie said the Ministry Technical and Higher Education is responsible to produce the workforce for the future of this country and one that should get people to train at all levels and layers in Sierra Leone.
Therefore, he went on, the 5 years plan for the sector’s boost is for every region of this country to have a higher education institution, not necessarily a University but a College that can be called a Community College that offers all the options that are required in that community.
He said in Bonthe, as a start, his government is constructing a Government Technical Institute, with plans on the wayto restart the nursing institution at Mattru Jong.
He cautioned the students that a government cannot give them physical cash in their pockets but that the biggest cash government can offer them is the cash on their head through President Bio’s New Direction’s free, quality education.
He said officially when people talk about University of Sierra Leonethey think, FBC, IPAM and College of Medicine which are all situated in the Western Area Urban.
The Commander revealed that the ministry is working toward getting aCommunity College in every district of Sierra Leone, a University in every region of Sierra Leone and a Technical University in Western Area Rural.
He said that is the more reason the government is upgrading the Milton Margai College of Education and Technology to the Milton Margai University of Education and Technology, while assuring that cash for this transformation isalreadywith government and that work will commence by January-February of 2022.
He further revealed that for the Southern region, N’jalaUniversity will start to have Satellite options in other districts of the region to ensure that students residingin Bonthe and other parts of the region can be able to access N’jalaUniversity through online programmes.
Despite this, the minister furthered, “we are going to build a brand new ICT University in Bonthe Island and work is on the way as I speak.” He added that the other polytechnic which is going to be the University of the East is the Eastern Polytechnic which already has 3 campuses in Kono, Kenema and Kailahun.
The Kailahun branch he assured will commence rehabilitation alongside the MMCET in early 2022.
He said: “For Kono, we have already gotten separate resource for the construction of a Thirty-Two Million United States Dollars,worth of University in Kono and that work is starting in September of this year, to be followed with the construction of University in Port Loko and other parts of the country”.
