Formal education is known to be one of the best routes out of poverty. Socioeconomically, poverty decreases significantly with increased educational levels, which is why the Free Quality School Education (FQSE) policy of the Sierra Leone Government aims to achieve greater access to education by reducing financial barriers to school enrolment and improving teaching and learning outcomes for all students. Therefore, there is need to take education campaign to rural community level by supporting with learning materials that could nurse children’s interest and be encouraged to choose formal education over economically unproductive engagements.
With Funds from Actionaid International-Sierra Leone(AASL), in 2024, ABC-Development supported Reading Circles in Sponsorship Communities with GoSL prescribed text book to Primary Schools in vulnerable and hard to reach communities in order retain young citizens in pursuit of formal education against been dragged to farming practices and community market sitting days (“Luma”) to assist their parents for business transactions.
In 2025, with funds from AASL, ABC-Development implemented an activity entitled: “Invigorate child Sponsorship through Inter-School Spelling competition.” The focus of said activity was to strengthen school systems and improve learning environments for quality educational outcomes.
The competition brought three schools together drawn from Sponsorship communities of Kirma Bana, Laminaya, and Bennah of Masungbala Chiefdom of Kambia district. Ahmadiyya Muslim Primary School of Kirma Bana, Kambia District Education Committee Primary School of Laminaya and Ahmadiyya Muslim Primary School Bennah.
Teachers were guided to write spellings from reading materials that was used at the reading circle. Each school was asked to develop twenty (20) spellings per class (3, 4 and 6) that were wrapped in a same small size piece of A4 size paper that was provided through activity. The wrapped sizes of spelling papers were deposited by teachers into a black bag for dipping(shook well). The pulled spelling was provided to the evaluator (commonly called Judge) that pronounced pulled out spelling for the dipper to firstly spell. If the dipper was not able to spell the pulled out word, an opportunity was given to his/her team member to spell for which a failure gave extended opportunity to other competing teams/individuals.
