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Sierra Leone: Schools reopen after Ebola, but pupils still on the streets

Four weeks into the new school term, many children in Sierra Leone are staying away from school, preferring to sell goods or do manual work.

Abdul Bundu Kamara is the headmaster of Kroo Bay Community Primary School. He says, “Most [parents] complain that they don’t have the money to send kids to school. There are many challenges in the school and the community.”

The international NGO, Save the Children, estimates that just 10 per cent of the students in Freetown attended the first day of school. Rob MacGillivray, the NGO’s director for Sierra Leone, says that the Ebola outbreak has made things much worse this year. He says, “Trying to stop kids from working … will be a mammoth task.”

To read the full article, go to: http://www.irinnews.org/report/101461/schools-reopen-but-ebola-keeps-pupils-on-the-streets [1]

Photo credit: Aurelie Marrier d’Unienville/IRIN