Donald Doherty & Saidu Bangura: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 10 February 2026:
When Sierra Leone launched the Free Quality School Education (FQSE) in 2018, it was more than a policy announcement. It was a moral declaration, described as one of the most ambitious social policies in Sierra Leone’s post-war history.
In a country where poverty had long determined who went to school and who stayed home, the removal of school fees was both a moral statement and a political gamble.
That gamble has delivered undeniable gains but it has also exposed deep structural weaknesses that now threaten public confidence in the policy.
Education was elevated to a national priority, framed as both a right and a public good. School fees were abolished, textbooks were promised, and thousands of children, many of whom had never stepped into a classroom were suddenly given a chance.
It inspired many at the time as some parents and grandparents enrolled themselves into schools and wore school uniforms and sat in classrooms, whether this was for fun or reality, it was interesting to see as it energised the FQSE campaign.
Eight years on, several questions dominate conversations in staffrooms, marketplaces, radio phone-ins, and family homes. The national conversation has shifted.
It is no longer about whether free education was the right idea. It is about whether Sierra Leone is doing what is necessary to make it work.
The questions around the conversations include, but are not limited to the following: Is the “Free Quality Education” truly free?
Is there any true quality in it? Does the “Free Quality Education” programme factor in twenty-first century educational opportunities like access to technology and modern physical infrastructures that make learning enjoyable and interesting?
Does the programme provide technological and infrastructural facelifts for teachers and pupils in public schools (government assisted schools) or were these facelifts done only in urban and Grade A Schools, most of which are private (mostly religious mission schools)?
Honest and palpable answers to any of those questions or all of them is not simple. But it is clear that the “Free Quality Education” programme has been a revolution to education access and enrolment.
But are access and enrolment panaceas for all the educational challenges parents, guardians, teachers, pupils and communities face?
Let us begin with what the policy undeniably achieved.
Since 2018, school enrolment has risen dramatically, with national figures showing an increase of over 60% in total enrolment within four years. The Free Quality Education has transformed access: school enrolment has risen sharply across the country.
Thousands of children, especially girls and children from poor households, have entered classrooms that were once financially out of reach. Girls, long excluded by poverty, early marriage, and pregnancy returned to classrooms in unprecedented numbers.
Policies banning pregnant girls from school were reversed. Textbooks were distributed. School feeding programmes expanded.
For many families, especially in rural Sierra Leone, the FQSE removed the single biggest barrier to schooling: official fees.
This was not cosmetic change. It was structural. And it mattered. Any fair assessment must acknowledge this: the Free Quality Education programme opened the school gates to thousands if not hundreds of thousands of school-age children.
But access and enrolment are not the same as the promised quality education and the learning outcomes.
As enrolment surged, the system came under strain. Classrooms became overcrowded. Teachers, many unqualified or unevenly deployed, were stretched thin.
Infrastructure lagged behind demand. And most importantly, learning outcomes failed to improve at the same pace as participation. Independent assessments consistently show that many children remain unable to read fluently or perform basic numeracy tasks, even after several years in school.
Exam pass rates may be rising, but foundational skills, those that determine whether education changes lives, remain worryingly low.
National exams such as the NPSE show improving pass rates, but independent learning assessments tell a more sobering story: too many children can attend school for years and still struggle to read a simple sentence or solve basic sums.
This is not a uniquely Sierra Leonean challenge. Globally, education systems that expand rapidly often experience a “quantity–quality gap”. The difference lies in how governments respond when the limits of access-only reform become clear.
“Free” education and the crisis of trust
Public dissatisfaction with the FQSE is not ideological—it is practical. Parents complain, with justification, that while tuition fees have been abolished, the cost of schooling has not disappeared.
Uniforms, transport, learning materials, extra lessons when schools fall short, and informal charges continue to place heavy burdens on low-income households.
Schools, on the other hand, argue that government subsidies meant to replace fees are often delayed, incomplete, or unpredictable.
When funding fails to arrive on time, school administrators face impossible choices: operate without basic resources, accumulate debt, or quietly pass costs back to parents.
This is how trust erodes. A policy cannot call itself “free” if its financing mechanism forces schools to depend on parental contributions for survival. Parents cannot be blamed for frustration when public promises collide with daily reality.
Hence, the result is frustration on all sides, teachers, schools, parents, and a growing perception gap between policy and lived experience.
We cannot call a policy “free” on paper, but costly in practice. Parents’ frustrations are not imagined. While tuition fees have been abolished, indirect costs remain, and these costs have made the policy more costly than expected.
The geography of inequality: rural children, especially girls still left behind
Data from Sierra Leone’s own education sector analysis points to a stark truth: where school-age children live and the opportunities the region offers them still largely determine how far they can go in education, and consequently what future awaits them.
Urban school-age children are far more likely to complete secondary education and forge ahead than their rural peers. Boys still outperform girls in completion rates. And poor rural girls remain the most educationally excluded group in the country.
Free education has narrowed gaps at the point of entry, but it has not eliminated structural inequality. Distance to schools, shortage of qualified teachers, early marriage, teenage pregnancy, and household poverty continue to push the most vulnerable out of the system.
This is precisely why successful education reforms globally pair universal free education with targeted support. Countries that have succeeded, for example, Rwanda, Bangladesh, parts of Ghana, did so by pairing free education with targeted support: scholarships for poor girls, incentives for rural teachers, transport assistance, safe sanitation facilities, and predictable school funding.
Sierra Leone has begun to do this, but not yet at sufficient scale. This tells us something critical: “free education” alone cannot overcome poverty, geography, and gender norms.
What works – Evidence
The good news is that Sierra Leone does not need to guess what works. We already have proof, right here as we already know what works:
- The Sierra Leone Education Innovation Challenge (SLEIC) has shown that when funding is tied to learning outcomes, children gain the equivalent of nearly an extra year of schooling in literacy and numeracy.
- Technology-supported learning pilots in districts like Pujehun have produced 40% higher learning gains, while closing gender gaps in classrooms.
- Cash-plus programmes for vulnerable girls have significantly improved attendance and retention, especially among adolescents most likely to drop out.
- Targeted projects for out-of-school girls have not only re-enrolled students but have seen them pass national exams and transition to tertiary education.
These are not theoretical models imported from elsewhere. They are locally tested solutions. These are not slogans. They are measured results.
The Real Challenge – Focus and Implementation Discipline
The central challenge facing the Free Quality School Education today is not ambition. It is implementation and prioritisation discipline. Global evidence is clear on what matters most. We provide twelve keys of a quality-driven educational/school system:
- Foundational learning first – children must learn to read and count in the early grades.
- Structural language empowerment – mother-tongue/home, national and international language exposure at an early age for national cohesion and international competitiveness is both a sine qua non and an added advantage.
- Qualified teachers in all regions – especially rural/remote areas, with a good salary and other incentives for them to stay to ensure an equitable system nationwide.
- Unlimited and predictable school funding – it must be on time and transparent.
- Targeted support for the poorest and most vulnerable – especially girls in remote areas.
- Measure learning, not just enrolment – what gets measured gets fixed.
- Engage communities without shifting costs to parents – trust is a policy tool.
- School infrastructures must be fixed and modernised – the physical environment is an important learning incentive.
- Technological ecosystem drivers – twenty-first century digital requirements are part of quality education deliverables.
- Pedagogical empowerment – teachers must be empowered with digital skills and skill-based pedagogies that benefit the pupils and their communities.
- Competence-based educational environments – schools and classrooms must be equipped as spaces where a competence-based education is the driver of the learning process.
- Educational materials’ availability – school, town, municipal, and district libraries must have all the school materials for both teachers and children and the general public.
No country successfully delivers quality education by doing everything at once and haphazardly. Successful systems narrow priorities, sequence reforms, and protect the basics.
So, is the Free Quality Education a Slogan?
No. It is real, transformative, and necessary. It has, however, been incomplete, and has lost public confidence given the fact that structural, physical and technological structures have not been managed with honesty and focus.
The Free Quality Education policy has won the access to education battle. The real test of leadership now is not whether to defend the FQSE rhetorically, but whether to strengthen it structurally, by fixing funding flows, prioritising learning, and targeting the children most likely to be left behind, especially those in remote areas.
Sierra Leone has crossed the access threshold. The danger now is complacency: celebrating enrolment figures while ignoring school and classroom environments where learning remains weak and teachers remain unsupported and unmotivated is what needs to be addressed.
The opportunity is even greater: to turn access into achievement, and schooling into real education. The harder work, building quality, equity, and trust, lies ahead.
That work demands less celebration and more trajectorial correction. And it demands a national conversation grounded not in slogans, but in evidence.
The need for a national conversation on education is urgent
The Free Quality School Education programme in Sierra Leone is both a remarkable achievement and a work in progress. It has undeniably expanded access, opened doors for girls and rural school-age children, and signaled a national commitment to education as a right.
Despite those gains, significant challenges remain: learning outcomes, equity, and reliable school resources still lag behind the promise.
The programme’s success will ultimately depend not on slogans, but on sustained focus, disciplined execution, and inclusive reforms that ensure every child, not just those in urban areas or Grade A schools, can truly learn and thrive.
Celebrating the gains while confronting the gaps honestly is the path toward turning access into meaningful, lasting educational achievement.
The Free Quality School Education programme should not be defended blindly, nor dismissed cynically. It should be debated honestly, strengthened intelligently, and held accountable publicly.
Parents, teachers, policymakers, civil society, and journalists all have a role to play. Why? Education is not just about budgets or policies. It is about the future the country is preparing or failing to prepare its school-age children for.
And on that question, we cannot afford silence, slogans, or shortcuts.
Authors’ Note:
We, Donald Doherty (UK)- MSc (Development Studies; and Saidu Bangura (Cabo Verde)- PhD (Sociolinguistics), write to inform, challenge, and inspire, driven by our commitment to a better Sierra Leone. Our work is independent and is not affiliated with any political agenda.
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