allAfrica.com: Sierra Leone: Extra Year to Boost School Performance

allAfrica.com: Sierra Leone: Extra Year to Boost School Performance:

Pupils in Sierra Leone, where just over a third of adults are literate. (Photo Courtesy Manoocher Deghati/IRIN)

Freetown — Sierra Leone is instituting major reforms to its education system after the country reported some of the poorest academic results in West Africa. It will start with adding an extra year to the end of secondary school beginning in 2013, and nearly doubling daily classroom hours.

"This intervention affects the entire system. Increasing the secondary school programme by one year affects everybody in the entire country," says Salieu Kamara, the Chief Education Officer of Sierra Leone's Ministry of Education.

Every year, Sierra Leonean students sit for the standardised West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in their final year of secondary school to determine their eligibility for college and university.