Paying the price for a generation of disruption
One of the casualties of Sierra Leone’s 11-year civil war was its education system.
1270 primary schools were destroyed, and tens of thousands of children were recruited as soldiers resulting in a generation of young people missing out on a full formal education.
Despite considerable efforts to address literacy issues in the country, progress has been slow.
Things got worse in 2014 with the Ebola epidemic setting literacy improvements back as an estimated five million children were denied an education.
In 2022 the adult literacy rate was 48.64%, but for women it was 41.31%. This means that nearly 60% of women over 15 are unable to both read and write a short simple statement about everyday life. The limitations this imposes are enormous.
Yet, poverty and deprivation often turn individuals into entrepreneurs as they struggle to find ways to sustain themselves and their families. In many cases, the responsibility for supporting families and communities falls to women. However, succeeding in business, hard in the best of circumstances, is very difficult without literacy and knowledge.
This is further compounded by lack of understanding of available services or the need to set up for financial resilience through savings banks.
It’s easy to see how poor literacy and numeracy skills affect the ability to keep records, manage finances and communicate with suppliers or customers. But the lack of problem-solving and critical thinking ability, usually acquired in the classroom, can also impact the success of a business enterprise.
Women in deprived communities bear the brunt of this double bind – the everyday need to provide for their children combined with an acute lack of resources to do this.