OBITUARY TRIBUTE:  MR S.H.A. SAWYERR

POWAA UK & IRELAND FOUNDERS DAY MESSAGE

Princewaleans all, greetings to you from POWAA UK & Ireland on this memorable day commemorating 95 years of the founding of our school. It is truly an honour to pay tribute to the founders, past principals and teachers and current leaders at the school for upholding what we all cherish so dearly. No doubt we will have bittersweet memories of this day, yet again, because of the restraint in demonstrating the love that we share together as colleagues, classmates, friends and a wider family. I trust that we will appreciate the sentiments this day, 6 April, brings wherever we reside in the world today and are truly grateful to be part of this group.
I must also bring to the fore the existence of POWAA UK & Ireland during the past 35 years. Our association has made a remarkable contribution to the school during this time. It is worthy of note that the association would not have achieved this without the support of our members, patrons, sponsors and supporters and on behalf of the current Executive I want to say thank you for the contribution made by these people some of them non-Princewaleans.
It is with regret that I inform you that the Executive decided, at the trustees’ meeting on Friday 3 April, to cancel this year’s near-term events i.e. the Dinner and Dance, Thanksgiving services and Summer Fest activities as a result of the devastating impact of COVID-19 in our respective communities. As an organisation, we have a duty of care to our members and stakeholders and for this reason, I have been mandated to inform you of this decision with immediate effect. We may have the opportunity to meet as a family later this year at the Skool Daze event in November. Nonetheless, you can place orders for your 95th year merchandise through the POWAA Online Shop on our website.
In my New Year’s message I referred to the changes that were all around us in every aspect of our lives. Well, last Friday, the trustees held their first virtual meeting using Zoom – video conferencing and intend to use this medium of communication as required going forward. We wish to schedule virtual general meetings commencing Sunday 19 April through this medium and I encourage members of POWAA UK & Ireland to be part of this experience. The joining details will be communicated in due course.
Ladies and gentlemen let us continue to be proud of our school and support its development because it has enabled us to stand on firmer ground today. Our legacy must be to do whatever is necessary to maintain that vision for those yet to be Princewaleans as those before us once did for us.
Your President
Eugene Benjamin

The start of the year is always time to reflect and set ambitions and or wishes for new beginnings.  I sincerely hope that you all have had some time to recharge your batteries over the holidays, now getting ready for what lies ahead.  

It is no surprise that change is all around us in every aspect of our lives.  Therefore as we celebrate new beginnings for 2020, let us reflect on the past 94 years of our school and inspire the changes that are necessary.  I need not remind us all of the most recent negative publicity which engulfed our community about the Prince of Wales School. That was, perhaps, the clarion call for the sort of change that I am alluding to.  We have a choice to sit on the fence but I encourage each one of us to get more involved and help make a difference because we are the fortunate ones to have benefited from what the school had to offer.

I hear from Princewaleans who say that they are not aware of what the association does or stands for.  If you are one of those people then we have listened to those comments and have reactivated our website which has up-to-date information on what you need to know ( https://www.powaa.uk ) and included an annual ‘bring a friend’ meeting in June as part of our annual calendar;  just two ways to stay in touch.  We have also commissioned an Away Day event in February for Trustees and ex-officials to reflect and brainstorm with a goal to map out our raison d’etre. You will hear more about the result of this in due course.

Ladies and gentlemen, let us not lose hope on our school.  It is why all of us stand on firmer ground today.  Our legacy must be to do whatever is necessary to maintain that vision for those yet to be Princewaleans as those before us once did for us.  

 I wish you all a fruitful year ahead and look forward to your renewed cooperation towards the association and its work, not least, as we plan to commemorate 95 years of our school in the months to come. 

Eugene Benjamin 

Your President

 ‘’Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.” Matthew 2:2

Besides listening to the Queen’s Speech or sing carols etc, one of the many things some of us do after the Christmas dinner is to either play games or watch one on television.

A popular TV game is Catchphrase with its guiding watch words ‘say what you see’, an action that always works. Similarly the famous Transport for London guiding security principle tells us to ‘ see it, say it, sorted’. Most important of all the three wise men saw the star and followed it to worship Jesus. The commonality in all three cases is taking positive action from what is seen.

No doubt there is so much that we shall see, hear and experience during this festive season. 

Fellow Princewaleans you are invited to take action, whether spiritually or physically to encourage, fix or bring to light what you see particularly that pertains to the development of our school.

As we enter into a new decade 2020, let us emulate our founding parents- they saw a need, said it to their principals and sorted it. .... and the glorious result?- the celebration of 95 years of our beloved Prince of Wales School. Something to think about.

Blessed joyous “powaaful” Christmas 🎄🤶🏿

Sylvia Wachuku-King

Pastoral Officer

By Dr.Julius Spencer
In my last article, I gave you an insight into what education in Sierra Leone was like, both while I was a pupil and teacher in school and university. Today, I will give you some idea of what went wrong and why. However, before that, let me tell you a bit about my wife, Sonia.
Sonia has a Ph.D in Science Curriculum Development and Evaluation. For her Ph.D project, she worked on Using Indigenous Technology as a basis for teaching Science, Mathematics and technology to JSS pupils and developed a module using the traditional coal pot to teach about energy to JSS 1-3 pupils. She later developed a number of other such modules, including using traditional gara tie dyeing, fish processing and the production of Omole (local gin) to teach some other science concepts. She offered these modules to the Ministry of Education to be used for teaching science in schools, but they were not interested. She published a number of articles in international science education journals and ended up being invited to the Netherlands, India (to name a few) and South Africa to run workshops in three universities that were looking for new methods of teaching science. What she imparted through these workshops contributed to their new approach to teaching science in that country.
When Sonia left the University, she worked for the British Council. While there, she led a team made up of the Conservation Society of Sierra Leone, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) some Secondary school teachers, and lecturers from FBC and Freetown Teachers College to produce a series of textbooks on using the environment to teach English, Science, Social Studies and Mathematics for JSS 1-3 which were donated to the Ministry of Education. Those books were never distributed to schools because ministry officials came up with a huge budget for the distribution which she rejected and offered to get some UN agencies to transport them to the various districts free of charge. Of course the ministry officials were not interested and the books were left lying in their stores and to this day have never been used.
Sonia is just one example of the many Sierra Leoneans whose ideas and expertise are not being used to solve the many problems this country has. There are Sierra Leonean economists, agriculturists, mining experts, telecoms experts, etc. Some of them having retired from senior positions in international organisations, now based in the country and being used as advisers by other countries while their own country does not make use of their services. I am sure many of you are surprised to hear this, but it’s the truth. Why is this happening?
The answer to this question is fairly simple, but I will come back to that later. For now, let me get back to the topic of this piece which is the decay in education and what needs to be done.
If you remember, in my last article I briefly mentioned the fact that the average Sierra Leonean is not an innovator and consequently we have become a nation of imitators. Well, my wife Sonia is one of the exceptions and the reason for that is quite simple. She did music in school and to this day has kept in touch with her form one music teacher, an American lady that visited us in Freetown a few years ago. She was also involved in drama and acted in a play directed by the Late A.K. Turay during our first year at Njala. In addition, she was a member of the first gospel music group in Sierra Leone, the Gospel Youth Singers. In other words, her creative intelligence was developed through involvement in the creative arts such that even though she is in the sciences, she can think creatively. The same applies to some of the foremost scientists and engineers in this country and the world over. Someone like Prof. Koso Thomas, while being a professional civil engineer is a fine artist and poet as well. Mr. Tani Pratt, another civil engineer, is also a musician and one of the leading organists in the country, and the list goes on.
The point I am trying to make is that the creative arts are a very important part of a rounded education. This was recognised as far back as Ancient Greece by the philosopher, Aristotle. Music and the performing arts were therefore an integral part of education in this country in the past. There was an arts education unit in the ministry of education that organised singing competitions for primary schools and drama competitions for secondary schools. All this ended a while ago and the unit disappeared.
I mentioned in my previous article, that while teaching at the St. Edwards Secondary school in the late 1970s, apart from being supervised by my head of department, school inspectors from the ministry of education visited the school periodically and engaged the teachers. I know that some years ago while Dr. Alpha Wurie was Minister of Education, an effort was made to revive and strengthen the school inspectorate division, but I wonder how effective it is today.
I was also surprised when a few years ago I heard that a team in Freetown had written lesson plans/notes for the core subjects and teachers were going to be trained to use them. I was surprised because I expected that any trained teacher should know how to do a lesson plan and lesson notes and it does not make sense for this to be done centrally because lesson plans and notes should be based on a particular set of pupils to be taught, taking into consideration their current level of competence in the subject. But of course it was done centrally because a group of people were paid to do it.
This brings me to the vexing question of corruption in the education sector and the issue of exams malpractices. As I said in my last article, the teachers and officials engaged in this practice did not come from Mars. They are products of our society which has become totally corrupt. As Late Siaka Stevens once said, “usay dɛn tay kaw na de I fɔ it gras”. Our teachers, like all other workers have come to believe that there’s nothing wrong with making extra money in their places of employment. After all, they see politicians who had nothing and were down and outs, suddenly become wealthy overnight, flaunting their ill-gotten wealth in the faces of those intellectually superior to them.
But the problem is not just with teachers. Corruption is rife in all sectors, with the education sector being close to the top of the pile. Many officials in the Ministries of Education, as is the case in all other ministries, are only interested in activities that they will benefit directly from, as my wife’s experience clearly shows.  
Add to this the fact that pupils are no longer interested in acquiring knowledge. All they are interested in is acquiring the paper qualification because they believe that’s all they need to make it in life. Little wonder we now have students graduating from university with first class degrees who cannot write a single sentence without multiple grammatical and spelling errors.
To compound the problem is the fact that there has been a breakdown in parenting and many children are left on their own to fend for themselves. Our parents monitored our activities and we did the same for our children. We ensured they did their school homework; we attended Parent Teacher Association meetings and speech days; we engaged their teachers to find out how they were doing in class; we made sure they spent time studying at home. Nowadays, most parents have no idea what their children get up to. But worse is the fact that some parents encourage, particularly their daughters, to engage in illicit activities so they can bring things home. Parents induce teachers to give their children marks they do not deserve through bribery. And this has been going on since the 1990s.
Teachers, of course have also played a major role in the destruction of our education system by demanding cash or sex for grades, extorting monies from students by forcing them to buy pamphlets, not turning up for class and generally spending as little time as possible actually teaching. Note that I am using the term “teacher” in a generic sense to include all those involved in the activity, including university lecturers. In schools, many teachers insist that pupils pay and attend extra lessons where they actually teach, thus ensuring that those children who do not attend the extra lessons have little or no chance of passing exams. And all of this did not start today. I have clear evidence that it was going on as far back as the early 1990s.
I remember my son coming home one day from school. He attended the Prince of Wales like me, but during his own days in the school, class sizes had risen to 80 children and at times over 100. When he was in form 3 (1992), he came home one day rather upset saying that he had been awarded a mark lower than what he believed he deserved for Technical Drawing and when he took up the matter with the teacher, the teacher told him to give him some money so he could change the mark on his report card. He insisted that the teacher had already done that for some other boys. My wife and I could not believe what he was telling us and felt he was only trying to find a way to explain his poor performance in the subject. He however insisted that what he was telling us was true and asked that we give him the money and see if the mark on his report card will not change. We decided to give him the money to see what will happen and low and behold he came home with the report card the next day with the mark changed to a high pass mark. My wife and I were so disturbed that we went to the school the next day to report the matter to the principal expecting that some serious disciplinary action would be taken against the teacher who was easily identifiable, but all the principal did was make a lame comment like “o these teachers, some of them are difficult to control,” and that was the end of the matter.
While chatting with my son, who is now a medical doctor, about this and other issues a few days ago, he told me what had happened when he was in form 1, which he did not speak about at the time. The following are his own words.
“When I was in form 1 (1989), our woodwork teacher gave everyone a low mark in the first test we had and then came to class telling us how badly we’d performed and that we should give him money to change our marks. Being a fresh-faced boy from International School Njala, I ran to the principal and told him. The principal called the teacher to his office and lambasted him. Unfortunately for me, he told him I was the one who had reported the matter and the teacher came back to class and shamed me in front of the whole class. I clearly remember the day after it happened. As I was walking towards the form 1 block of classes, everyone in all the four form 1 classes came out of their classes singing “the evil” in unison. Throughout form 1, I was nicknamed “The Evil” and I never got more than 55 in both Woodwork and Metalwork until I got to form 3 and dropped both of them.”
I will pause here today. In my next article, I will lay out my ideas on what needs to be done to really change the status quo in education.

By Dr. Julius Spencer:
I started primary school at the age of 5 when my father retired from the Nigerian Civil Service and we returned home. While in Nigeria, I recall that I attended nursery school, but of course my memory of those days is quite hazy. I started school in Sierra Leone at the Christ Church primary school, then moved to the Cathedral Boys School and finally to the Tower Hill Municipal school where I took my Common Entrance Examination, now called National Primary School Examination (NPSE) and proceeded to the Prince of Wales Secondary School. I have no idea why my parents moved me and my younger brother from one primary school to another, but I suspect they were not quite satisfied with the education I was receiving.  
At the time I attended primary and secondary school, there were no private schools in the country. In all my years in school, I only recall taking private lessons for Maths while I was in form 2 at the Prince of Wales. And this was because I was very weak in maths and we lived close to the Jonahs. Mr. Julius Jonah was a maths and physics teacher at the Prince of Wales school and was my father’s friend. When he found out that I was weak in maths, he offered to give me private lessons free of charge, and I recall I would go to his house a number of times in the week after school for lessons. I don’t recall the reason now, but I stopped going after a while. Needless to say, I failed maths at O’Level. My maths was so bad at the time, that adding together a string of numbers gave me a headache, and calculators didn’t exist then, not to talk about computers. I guess I was not cut out for the sciences, because my performance in the arts and humanities, apart from History which I hated, was very good.
While at the Prince of Wales school, I had an experience which completely changed my attitude to academic work. I had to repeat form 2 and the experience of going to school at the beginning of the next academic year and having to sit in class with those who were your juniors, while almost all your friends have moved to the next class had such a profound impact on me that I ensured I was always in the top 10% of any class after that, including while in university.
When I entered the Prince of Wales school, the pass mark to be promoted from one class to another was 45%. At the time our school principal was an Englishman. Our teachers were highly respected men and women in society and many of them drove their cars to school. We respected our teachers and aspired to be like them. Anyway, I digress. Back to my repeating form 2.  
That year, for some reason, the school authorities decided to increase the pass mark to 50%. I scored 49.5%, a mark that is etched in my memory to this day, and I had to repeat the class. At the time, class sizes at the Prince of Wales and in most schools ranged from 28 to 35. We were provided a broad based education. In fact the year I took the O’Level exam, now called WASCE, there were only 12 of us in my class, 5 General. Form 5 Science had 10 and Form 5 Arts had 16. In 5 General, we did some arts subjects and science up to a certain level. Even though we were not in the pure science class, we did science practicals in biology, chemistry and physics. I loved the physics experiments and to this day, I remember experiments we did in reflection and refraction, and so I understand how mirrors work and what creates mirages. I did titration in chemistry, but somehow, perhaps because I had poor eyesight, I never could quite recognise the exact point when the liquid changed colour.
While in school in those days, our creative intelligence was developed alongside our social skills. We did some fine art, mainly drawing and painting, woodwork, and music. In fact, I did music up to O’Level. We had a Literary and Debating Society in the school and all pupils from form 4 upwards were members. The last 2 periods every Friday were for L&DS. There we learnt to debate, conduct meetings, make speeches, etc. In those days, school commenced at 7.30am with Assembly and by 8.00am, we were having our first lesson. We had 2 breaks, a 15 minutes break in the mid-morning and a 30 minutes lunch break, and school ended at 2.30pm.
I am sure by now you are wondering what the point of this history lesson is. Well, I have been trying to paint a picture of what education was like in those days in Sierra Leone, that is the 1960s and 70s. Even teacher training was top notch.
As I said in my last article, I was initially trained as a teacher at Njala University College (NUC). Apart from my major and minor subjects of English and Geography, we did educational psychology, educational philosophy, educational management as well as methodology for our major and minor subjects. Most of the 2nd term (it was a 3 term system at the time) during the 3rd and 4th years of our course was spent on teaching practice, and so I did my teaching practice in my 3rd year at the Harford Girls School and in my final year at the Bo School. We were taught how to do lesson notes and lesson plans as well as how to do assessment. Our lecturers visited the schools where we were assigned to observe us teaching and gave us tips on how to improve our teaching.
When I graduated and was teaching at the St. Edwards Secondary School, I had to do weekly lesson plans and daily lesson notes which were scrutinised by my head of department before I used them in my classes. School inspectors visited the school periodically and sat in on classes to observe what was going on and how teaching was being done. I was an English and Geography teacher while my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, was a Chemistry and Biology teacher. As a result, she was earning a bit more than me, because she was entitled to a science allowance. I also had some friends who went to teach in the provinces, because they earned even more since they were entitled to I think it was called remote area allowance.
At the time I went to school and university in Sierra Leone, and even up till the time I was a teacher and lecturer, the kind of things one hears about now were unheard of. Giving bribes to teachers for grades, not to talk about university lecturers, was something we did not even dream of. What was indeed happening even then was sexual harassment, though it was not as widespread as it is today. We noticed this while I was a lecturer at FBC and Dr. Kadi Sesay was my head of department. Because I was the lecturer in the department who was generally close to the students, as a result of the fact that I taught drama practicals from preliminary to qualifying year (1st to 3rd year) students, I was asked by Dr. Sesay to serve as student liaison. In other words, if students had any problem, I was the one they would talk to first. I recall having to have a quiet word with a couple of my male colleagues because some female students had told me that they were being harassed by them, and they desisted forthwith. There was nothing like study camp in universities, not to talk about schools, but then, most students stayed on campus and so could meet in groups even at night to discuss specific topics and help each other understand what they had been taught.
Well, all of this changed over time, and in my view, the education system collapsed in the 1990s. This was due to a shift in focus to basic education and the impact of the civil war. I recall sometime in 1991, I was part of the Academic Staff Association negotiation team that met with the government to negotiate better conditions of service for university staff. The late Joseph Momoh was President and Dr. Sama Banya was Vice President. I distinctly remember that we drew attention to the fact that the new focus on basic education virtually to the exclusion of university education was going to have a very negative impact on education in the country, but we were not listened to because the donors had convinced the government that a focus on basic education was the way to go.
Well many of the best brains left the country in search of greener pastures, and in the English Department at Fourah Bay College where I was, we lost people like Prof. Eustace Palmer, Prof Alex Johnson and Mr. Ajayi Coomber, the three most senior members of staff in the department at the time, and this scenario was replicated in most departments and institutions across the country. The impact of this was that the quality of university education declined and this had a knock-on effect at the lower levels of the education system, because it is in the university that the staff of teacher training colleges are trained, and they train the teachers that teach the pupils in schools.
In recent times, I have read a lot of opinions in articles inspired by the controversy over examination malpractices. All I will say on that for now is that many people have been talking about issues of which they have very little understanding. Those involved in these malpractices did not drop from Mars. They are a product of our society and the result of a history that has seen our entire society degenerate to a level of decadence that those of us of a certain age never imagined this country would sink to.
So hold these thoughts about what education was like in Sierra Leone in the past until I come back to you with part 2 of this article where I will lay out what I believe needs to be done to change the current status quo.


By Dr. Julius Spencer

President's New Year Message 2019.
Yes another year has gone by and we welcome and anticipate a blessed, better and brighter New Year.
Oh what a year 2018 has been!
In many respects I guess many of us would be relieved to leave 2018 behind as it was punctuated with more deaths and bereavements than any other year, I have known.
At the report of another passing, you could hear members sigh...oh no...not again...not another.
So we continue to hold in our prayers and thoughts all the bereaved and pray for the souls of the departed, through the mercy of God, to rest in perfect peace🙏🏿.
Perhaps this is a salient reminder for all of us to ensure that "our house is in order" in that we are in a right standing with our Lord and loved ones; to faithfully discharge the duties entrusted to us and that through our life's journey, we are guided by our Great Jehovah, to our promised rest.
We therefore sincerely thank God for the life and health we are afforded in serving our Alma mater despite the very busy lives we all live.
Looking back, our 2018 events were successful though the competition from the ever-increasing associations, charities and groups, clearly indicate that we can no longer rely on our annual events as our main funding stream.
Last year we contributed £7, 730.00 to various projects for the school including the usual end of year school bonus to all staff at the school.
This is more than a thousand pounds increase on our donation for 2017. Thanks for your personal contribution in this vein.
Forgive me but I cannot miss this opportunity to remind all members to pay their annual subscription of £20.00 as this goes some way towards meeting our goals and aspirations, each year.
You will note that we have decided to increase subscription by only £5.00 having retained it at £15.00 for many years.
This year our twin goals are simply 'M and M'…not the small chocolate sweets in small packets but these are our big projects in the 2018/19 package:
M - Mentorship of all the students that we currently sponsor at our school and
M- Maintenance of our school.
You may recall that I informed you all, in some detail about these two goals immediately after our AGM and election of current officers, in October 2018.
Guys we can do so much more to "...swell the chorus" by swelling our ranks.
There is much more room for you to come on board and give something back to your school as well as enjoy good company and share memories of yester years and hopes for future years.
This New Year would be marvellously rewarding if new members join us with new ideas and new inspiration thus having a new impact on our school, taking us to new heights through 2019 and beyond.

Please see our diary of events (on the website) for 2019 and stay tuned on the usual social media for regular news and briefings.
So my friends, if you are convinced that we (your Trustees)are good stewards and effective channels of your donation then please continue to support us generously and get involved fully, so that together, we can and will make a difference for Prince of Wales, Kingdom.
Happy New Year!
Ad honorem alma mater.
Ian Luke-Macauley
President

Fellow Princewaleans,
As the curtain falls on 2017 and as the engine starts 2018, from the depths of my heart (ab imo pectore) I pray and wish for you and yours a very blessed, bright, prosperous and powerful (or POWAA full!) New Year.
No doubt you will join me in thanking God for seeing us through another year, which family members and friends in Freetown will acknowledge with these words - "happy new year me nor die oh...tell God tenki for we life oh"🎵.

We ended the year on a melodious high note with all our guests craving for more - yes it was Skool Daze 2017 hitting all the right notes with palpable pride for each school in attendance not to mention the well-deserved winners of the three coveted prizes.
Sincere thanks to the Organising Committee led by Yves and all the members who contributed to making the event a better and massive success.

Just when you thought it couldn't get better than that, there was a euphoric event at the school on Friday 15th December, when along with our other alumni chapters we gave the entire staff at the school their annual Christmas bonus.
This was more than deeply appreciated by all of them and perhaps a salient reminder of why we exist as an association and a clarion call never to lose sight of our aspirations for our school.

Let me briefly share with you how much we contributed to the school this year:
- £1950 for staff bonus
- £1830 for Teacher's stipend
- £2000 for scholarships
- £1303 for printer, white boards, projectors, shipping and related cost.
This brings us to a total of £7,083.00 which excludes other funds donated towards the school rehabilitation project.
Thanks to our ‘Chancellor’ (Sir Pee) who has been very prudent with our funds.
The entire executive and trustees have worked extremely hard and their dedication to the association and our school, remains exemplary; I couldn’t wish for a better team.

Please take time to look at and diarise accordingly, dates for 2018, currently on our website. 
This includes all events and general meeting dates for the entire year, so you could plan and "join the ranks" as we raise funds, socialise and make plans for our school. 
I think you will agree with me that "we can do things together that we cannot do apart". 

When I was elected President in October 2017, I pledged these five goals: 
P - parastatal status by 2019 
O - operation each one bring one 
W- working together to achieve a common goal 
A- adopting a Mentorship scheme 
A- achieving a solid financial base 

Primus inter pares of plans for our school is to achieve parastatal status by 2019. 
Parastatal status is how we share responsibility and ownership of the school with the government. 
Ideally full ownership is the preferred plan but there are many factors which will not make that possible at this time hence our pragmatic and achievable approach in going for the parastatal status. 

I am therefore appealing to all Princewaleans who are not yet members of POWAA UK & Ireland. 
To join this rank, all you need to do is pay a minimum subscription of £15 annually and join us at our monthly meetings and various events but don't be put off if you cannot attend each month, you can still be involved via the WhatsApp forum; get involved during our events or just tell us how you can contribute, and we will contact you. 
There is so much more that we can achieve together so I am relying on you to help us move forward this year and achieve more than we did last year. 

Ad honorem alma mater.

Ian Luke-Macauley
President
POWAA UK & Ireland