Sierra Leone losing teachers to better-paying jobs elsewhere

With only 19% of children in school after Sierra Leone’s decade–long civil war, the former government began an ambitious project to renovate and build more schools. But while brightly painted blue and white classrooms have already popped up in towns and villages around the country they come at a time when fewer teachers than before are willing to work in them. “Graduates from teacher training colleges are abandoning the classroom looking for greener pastures elsewhere,” deputy director of junior and secondary schools at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Simon Labour, told IRIN. Before the war, Sierra Leone had about 20,000 qualified teachers, Labour said, but that number has dropped to 15,000. Read the article at IRIN News.