Why Not Edutainment? By Abdul Kargbo and Emmanuel Salia Gaima

We were shooting through St John(Western Area Urban) many months ago, and we noticed a stand-by placard. The placard was, and to a guess, may be still neatly leaned there on a standing pole. It protruded a flaring photo of a Diva of fame-Rozay. The placard carried the first of a type 'edutainment' campaign in Sierra Leone. We did not stop by to take a perfect gander at the other neccessary details of Rozay's brainchild,and to remember faintly,the placard did not carry anything further explanatory of such innovative campaign. In short,it was an ad calling all and sundry to congregate for an official launch of Rozay's innovative Edutainment Campaign. Maybe this will consternate many of our friends, but we had indeed never heard about such innovative plan of Rozay until that day. We might seem newsy to many,but this was one news out of our earlier grabbing reach! What are we on and about? We are about Rozay's exquisite innovation.

Rozay,in many eyes is not just an artiste with a glamour and lyrical fragrance,but she is also an inspiring beauty queen with almost a platinum breakthrough to her name. An innovatory like 'edutainment' has a slabber taste; however, our love for Rozay and her campaign will now lead us to maybe overstretch the nuts and bolts of her campaign a bit and call for our understanding of such innovatory into our formal schooling system. Sorry Rozay,our queen,but we will have to do this.

Please,for a moment, do not see this piece as an addition to the plethora of running-commentaries on our country's status quo. This is an issue after our heart. We have also noticed that the real voices have not been heard on it,thus yet. We had thought for a while not to lend a voice,but time is surely of the essence,so this is not a piece for just feasting.

To start with, we all have vocalized a write-off against the prevailing fad of abysmal examination outcomes of our kids in Sierra Leone. We can understand the cry. We have brothers in the system too, and We have not lost an opportunity to mete out a protest against them too. We all need to cry;in doing such,we should appreciate the people with the continuously complaining voice within this mess. They have been crying before now. They had ask for a reform to adopt edutainment in our four walls of learning. They had been pointing us all to a huge destructive attitudinal outcome from our created formal schooling system. These voices are the students'.

We are not siding with them in this missile throw,but frankly, we have not been sincere in our cry for an about-turn to the many egregious happenings in our formal schooling system;yes, we will have to buy a little from their plate! We should remember they are results of our own making. They are mere chess pieces. We have moved them wrongly within the educational chess game.

You might be wondering how? We are not going to play a revengeful fugue against the power that be;do not worry! Madam Rozay will not forgive us for that!

Many would assert the needlessness to listen to perpetrators, right?However,these students do have legitimate but unwarranted defences for their recent academic monstering. As a matter of fact, the natural justice principle of audi alteram partem(hear the other side) guarantees them a right to be heard.

Anyway, our understanding about edutainment is this: create an entertaining educational environment not a wrestling educational environment for our kids. Performance Management has the perfect methodology to achieve this.

Our fomnal educational establishment was born to create a skilled populace. The skill ranges from professionalism to academic competence. Sec 2(2) of the 2004 Sierra Leone Education Act clearly expouses the objective of our formal schooling system. Paragraph (b) of the said provision underscores 'skill-literacy' for a better humanoid.

Did you catch that?

Output-evaluation was to be the judging-performance review system for our formal school establishment. What is our result thus far? Well, 'we' will tell you;it is quite abysmal.

To be legal, our prevailing formal educational system is violating every element in the aforementioned statutory provision. The existing establishment has adoptions with little focus on the creative competence level of our kids; there is No edutainment,don't you think? The establishment has created an environment with the inevitable imposition of the fight or flight response. The existing hand-breaking academic wrestling at our formal school environs is far from traditional,and it is not even modern. It is draconian! We have seen traditional.

South Korean educational system epitomizes traditional. The education there is demanding,but entertaining. We have had discussions with South Korean students on reasons for a success story amidst the traditional nature of their educational system. They painted it so neatly. They painted the strength-recognizing tendency of their formal educational establishment. According to them, South Korean students study hard, and there is always a supportive system to get their hard work strengthened. They were on and about their excessive taste for excellence, and how receptive their schooling system is to such taste.

They talked about an equal-scale for all to battle for excellence and such led their government to take all educational cost implications off some of them to show the existence of supportive blessing from all sides. In short, their educational system is traditional,but edutaining.

We are not a supporter of the prevailing educational system in South Korea; a close friend of ours there had lost a family member to suicide, for he(the family member) did not make it into Seoul National University.

We are not asking for Sierra Leone to stop being traditional,but they should also consider edutainment! We are however, rooted for modernity and in support of a creative learning environment, but from a perfect glance, Sierra Leone is choosing to be traditional in zillion years,so why not be South Korea( with a drive against suicide,of course!) amidst this?

We have chosen being traditional,but we have killed the necessary support to our kids to enjoy being students. They come out of the schooling system hating every human being they came across during such journey. They hate them for investing not competency in them,but fallacy. They hate them for continuously telling them they will never be a genious. They hate them for not providing the necessary support needed to make them 'our new Kelvin Doe'(there are so many Kelvin Does in Sierra Leone;just change the system and see!!).

This stifling educational environment created for our kids has not led them to commit suicide like South Koreans(thank God!),but they are embracing malpractice!

This practice was not born by the students themselves,but by those with continuous love for a non-edutaining tradition. They are now the machinery aiding students to make this new illegal practice a success. 'Why were you not supportive enough during legality,but have chosen to be now to illegality?' This is a lingering thought on the minds of students,but they have no choice but to also create the necessary support to get this practice going. 'No edutainment,no best practices in our school system'. Such is a common parlance on the lips of some students!

Malpractice is illegal and all parties involved know it. Students hate it with all disgust,but the current setup of our educational establishment seems to deter them to ever resist it. Sadly,all practices of this illegality are becoming ingrained not only in slow-students but also the hardy ones. I am hoping a new anti-graft strategy will not only focus on punishing these victims,but also militating the causes for the existence of such victims.

The existing system created the room for our students to feel threatened. They felt threatened from all people with the capability to give them support. We were not really there all this while in their battlings and to continuously place them at the centre of the ongoing criticisms will only lead us to be less suportive to them, again!! Let's bring the needed system and avoid the criticism!

We love the president's stance for merit. He is in the right track. However,he should factor in edutainment in such track. All students will be rooted for merit in an all-round supportive system-even the slow ones(trust me!).

Docents should start taking the exponential success- drop of their class very seriously and not bring back their grudges against their teachers on their loving students.

Every learning institution in the nation should be adorned with an all-round supportive system;it should be a system with a support for students, and to students. In other words,it should be student-edutaining!

We need to create an educational structure not an educational puncture. Don't we all want long-term beneficial learning outcomes in our schools' creations? Then,let us try edutainment.

The muslims in chapter 96 of the Quran express the importance of a disciplined educational background, and such is so for the Budhist in one of their core ethics. Why can't we have a disciplined education with the necessaries to make our students disciplined too? South Koreans amidst their difficult educational system are not doling a dime to malpractice! Their system is created to not only be reacactive but also proactive. We support the idea of systems and proceses review being the most effective way to stop illegalities in our educational establishments. Let us not make our students populace guilty,but salvage their souls from not only corruption,but also their abysmal performance outcomes. We don't have to be guilty anymore through our violations of sec 2(2)(b) of the 2004 Education Act.

Edutainmemt is here as a concept, and it is here to serve as a regimen to our ailing formal schooll system and thanks to Rozay, we got to dig out such an attractive concept!!