A Grim Assessment of Sectoral Quality Assurance in the Era of Covid-19 in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is a resilient country that has gone through political transitions and negative economic evolutions as a result of geometric shocks not limited to;the 11 year rebel war, the Ebola pandemic in 2013, and the recent past mud slide and flooding in the city of Freetown and other parts of the country;cholera outbreak and the closure of the mining companies and other businesses in the private sector that have been the major contributor for job creation and worsened the situation to the already vulnerable socio-economic status in the Country. A grim assessment of sectoral quality assurance was adopted purposely to give a clear understanding of the status of sectors in the Sierra Leone’ economy as a result of the negative impact of the Covid-19 scourge that ravage the all regions in the country. The study reveals that, it was during the first quarter in 2020 when Sierra Leone recorded its first Covid-19 pandemic case as the most recent in a series of natural and artificial disasters Sierra Leone has faced taking cognizance the 11 years civil war that spanned from 1991 to 2002, cholera in 2012, Ebola in 2014, flooding and a mudslide in 2017. Since the inception of the virus to June, 2021, 5,887 confirmed cases and 109 death cases were recorded in the country. The emergence of the Covid-19 on the economy in Sierra Leone has incubated a systemic/country risk effect creating quality Assurance challenges in economic sectors with huge tendency to reverse gains especially in businesses - both in the private and public sector. Worthy to note also from the study was that despite the negative ramification of Covid-19 to all economic sectors has created an unfriendly environment in the economic sectors with quality assurance challenges, it gives rise to digitization in some facets of life especially the educational and commerce sector adopted the Learning Method System (LMS)- zoom Cloud e-learning platform and Podcasting that stimulate unlocking the potentials of businesses, academic staff, administrative staff and students.