Acknowledgements

This Human Resource Manual for Teachers and School Leaders, released by the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) is the final result of support from several individuals and institutions whom we wish to publicly acknowledge.

Initially, our thanks go to the EU, whose technical assistance and guidance under the Support to the Education Sector in Sierra Leone funding programme led to the manual’s development; Human Resources Specialist, Jens Gnaur; layout- and digitalisation experts Stephanie Malyon and Phil Lee (sub-contracted through Charlie Goldsmith Associates); and TSC managers and professionals including Mariam Abu and Bundu Kamara who were key to this process. We thank you for your diligent hours of work and commitment. Special thanks go to the respective departmental heads and staff of the TSC who engaged in this process.

Our appreciation for their invaluable back-up throughout the process goes to the TSC Senior Management, the EU Delegation in Sierra Leone and the management and staff of the consortium led by PROMAN (Luxembourg). The latter were contracted by the EU to support the ministries of education and the TSC with technical assistance.

Preparing the manual has been a participatory process involving representatives of the manual’s future users and key stakeholders. The manual team is extremely grateful for the inspiration, ideas, experiences and factual knowledge shared with enthusiasm by school leaders, teachers, TSC district staff, managers from the two ministries of education, representatives of the Sierra Leone Teachers’ Union and other representatives from several institutions associated with teaching in Sierra Leone. Without your engagement and contributions in the needs assessment phase, interviews, workshops and focus group sessions, the manual would not have been possible in its present form. It would also have lacked the relevance and user-friendliness which we hope it will demonstrate when applied for HR tasks, processes and approaches in the future.      

We can never quite thank all of you who have been a part of this journey. We recognise and appreciate your contribution. Let us all use the document to support the work, well-being and development of teachers and school leaders in Sierra Leone.