By Alpha Amadu Jalloh
Yet again, another press release from the Sierra Leone Teachers Union. Yet again, another round of polite begging, carefully worded appeals, and ritual disappointment. Teachers are owed subsidy backlogs from the 2024/2025 academic year. We are now firmly in the 2025/2026 period, and nothing has changed. No payment. No timeline. No accountability. Just another statement, another promise that “government has been engaged,” and another reminder that those entrusted to defend teachers have perfected the art of doing nothing.
Let us speak plainly. Sierra Leone is broke to the core. Not broke in rhetoric, but broke in reality. Broke where it matters most, in classrooms, in chalk dust, in unpaid salaries, in demoralised teachers who are asked to shape the future with empty pockets. The Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education has no real power. According to credible sources, it can plead but cannot decide. The Ministry of Labour is no different. It exists more as a ceremonial participant than a defender of workers. And the Ministry of Finance, without shame or restraint, presented a national budget with no meaningful provision to support teachers, the very backbone of national development.
Yet while teachers are owed, while schools struggle, while classrooms decay, funds somehow materialise for political spectacle. Sierra Leone may be broke, but there is always money for President Julius Maada Bio’s endless “Munku Waka Waka.” There is always money for travel, public relations, and carefully staged international appearances. There is always money for the First Lady’s “Hands Off Our Girls” campaign, which recently marked its seventh anniversary with fanfare, inviting and hosting first ladies from Liberia, Cape Verde, Burundi, Senegal, and Gabon. One must ask, not out of malice but out of responsibility, where the funds for such lavish operations came from. Who is funding them, and why is this funding available while teachers remain unpaid year after year?
President Julius Maada Bio came to power promising “Free Quality School Education” and declared education the cornerstone of Sierra Leone’s future, assuring the nation that no child would be denied learning because of poverty. That promise has not been kept. Today, “Free Quality School Education” has become a hollow mantra, repeated in speeches but betrayed in practice. There is nothing free about an education system built on unpaid teachers, dilapidated classrooms, and empty assurances. There is no quality in a system where educators are owed months and years of subsidy arrears while government officials travel the world preaching progress. What was marketed as a flagship reform has, in reality, become a farce sustained by propaganda and silence.
This is not an argument against education reform. It is an argument against hypocrisy. A nation that cannot pay its teachers has no moral authority to lecture its citizens about priorities. A government that pleads poverty when teachers demand their dues but finds abundance for elite initiatives has made its values painfully clear.
The tragedy, however, does not stop with government failure. The leadership of the Sierra Leone Teachers Union must also take responsibility. In fact, they must go. They have failed the very people who fund the union through compulsory deductions from already meagre wages. Teachers pay their subscriptions without fail. The union leadership, in return, offers press releases without consequence.
For years, SLTU leaders have mastered a predictable cycle. They issue statements. Government summons them. Meetings are held behind closed doors. Vague “agreements” are announced. Teachers are told to be patient. Then silence follows. And during that silence, teachers suspect, with good reason, that pockets are being lined. Call it bribery, call it inducement, call it compromise. Whatever the name, the outcome is the same. Teachers remain unpaid, and union leaders remain comfortable.
The Sierra Leone Teachers Union is perhaps the only organisation in this country with the capacity to make President Julius Maada Bio’s government sit up straight and pay attention. And it does not require riots, burning tyres, or confrontation with police. It does not require begging for clearance to demonstrate. All it requires is courage and strategy.
The most powerful weapon teachers possess is not the street. It is the classroom, or rather, the absence from it. A coordinated nationwide downing of tools would bring this government to its knees within days. When children cannot go to school, parents will ask questions. When parents begin to ask questions, pressure will mount. The police will not need to issue clearance. The people themselves will speak. Education touches every home, every tribe, every district. A government can ignore press releases, but it cannot ignore empty classrooms for long.
Why has this not happened? The answer is uncomfortable but necessary. The president, secretary general, and the chairperson of the women’s wing of the SLTU are in cohort with the government. Their loyalty is no longer to teachers but to power. In choosing access over accountability, they have undermined education and betrayed their mandate.
The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labour are not innocent either, but they are weak institutions operating under a strong presidency. The greater betrayal lies with a union that refuses to use its leverage. When union leaders become timid, compromised, or self-serving, the entire profession suffers.
Consider the consequences of this failure. Education in Sierra Leone has been steadily hollowed out. Morale among teachers is at its lowest. Many qualified and experienced educators have left the profession entirely. Others have left the country. Teachers are migrating in droves to The Gambia, Liberia, and Ghana, where they are valued and paid on time. Some have abandoned teaching altogether. Today, trained teachers can be found riding keke, hawking goods, or doing menial jobs, not because they lack passion for education, but because hunger does not wait for policy reform. At least as a keke rider, one can put food on the table.
What does this mean for the future of Sierra Leone? It means classrooms without experienced teachers. It means overcrowded schools staffed by unmotivated, underpaid, and often untrained personnel. It means children receiving an education that prepares them not for excellence, but for survival. A country that destroys the dignity of its teachers destroys its own future.
Then there is the issue of dishonesty from those in authority. Minister Fantamadi Bangura, among others, must explain why teachers are still wallowing in limbo. Lies, excuses, and shifting blame have become standard government responses. Teachers are told funds are coming, processes are ongoing, audits are required. Meanwhile, years pass. Backlogs pile up. Families suffer.
Let us be clear. Teachers are not asking for charity. They are demanding what is owed to them. Subsidies approved by government, budgets announced in parliament, promises made in public. These are obligations, not favours. Failure to meet them is not just incompetence, it is cruelty.
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The SLTU leadership must decide which side of history it wishes to stand on. Either it continues as a megaphone for government excuses, or it reclaims its role as a defender of teachers’ rights. If it chooses the former, then teachers themselves must act. Leadership that no longer serves its members must be removed. A union that fears power more than it fears irrelevance has already lost its soul.
Education is not a slogan. It is not a donor funded project. It is the daily labour of teachers who show up despite humiliation, poverty, and neglect. If Sierra Leone truly believes in education, then teachers must be paid, respected, and defended. Until then, no amount of press releases will hide the truth. Silence has become complicity, and the classroom is paying the price.
