Monrovia – Alton Brown, 54, collects plastic bottles from the sewage drain system. He sells the bottles to companies so his children, ages 7, 9, 15 and 19, can attend school.
Report by Bettie Johnson-Mbayo – [email protected]
This is the only job he can find because Brown is an illiterate.
“My parents didn’t send me to school from an early age, and I’ve been caught in the claws of misery as a result,” he says.
School enrollment rates have gone up in recent years on West African nation according to the Education Ministry, but fees, which are charged by most schools, remain a major barrier to entry for families, in particular those in which the parents did not receive a full education themselves.
MOE’s school report reveals that the total number of elementary and junior high school structures in the country are about 1,767.
The GAC reveal that the Liberia Institute statistics and Geo- Information statistics (LISGIS) shows that the total number of school going age children in the country for the period under audit is 776,167, the number of school going age children in schools are 266,548, while 509,619 of school going ages are out of school.
Those aren’t the only problems, says Brown who was a teacher for 19 years in both public and private schools in his rural hometown. Schools abound even in rural areas, he says, but there’s a lack of experienced teachers.
And too many children don’t get education at all, he says.
The Liberian Government recently adopted a partnership for schools which accordingly will be a help to the country ‘messy’ education system”.
Liberia has a long history of implementing child protection laws, which require parents to send their children to school, says Rudolph Gongar a 25-year teaching veteran who is now retired at one point, he says, parents who did not send their children to school faced problem by town chief or community leaders but it is no more.
With the child protection law passed into law in Liberia there has been limited or no implementation of that law up to date due to factors such as lack of budgetary support, coordination among partners, and limited knowledge among citizens on child rights.
Children have a right to education under Article III lays out a “Bill of Rights for Children,” which includes the following … education (including free, compulsory primary education); adequate food, and water.
The law is one of the most comprehensive pieces of children’s rights legislation in the continent and is largely based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, ratified by Liberia in 1993 and 1992 respectively.
Liberia is one of the first countries to adopt comprehensive legislation for children that incorporates the UNCRC and the African Charter.
This new law reflects the government’s commitment to support the progressive realization of all rights for all children: including their right to health: education; freedom from violence, abuse, and exploitation; and their right participate meaningfully in their own development.
Peace has prevailed in Liberia for more than 13 years since the end of the brutal 14 year- civil war in 2003.
With the conclusion of relatively peaceful presidential elections in late 2011 and the country is transitioning steadily from post-conflict to pursuing a full-fledged development agenda.
Liberia is currently developing its second poverty reduction strategy geared towards a vision of becoming a middle-income country by 2030.
“There is a need for collective awakening of community members in our society before the government of Liberia focuses on the application of laws,” Angela says.
“Otherwise, the same problems will repeat themselves time and time again.
“As a result, Liberia will face very high numbers of unemployment rates, with adult illiteracy rates reaching epidemic proportions, whereby the nation will find itself sunk into the pit of misery.”
Brown is determined that his children won’t share his fate.
He spent his childhood in Kawenken, Grand Kru, southern city of Liberia but his days were dedicated to helping his grandfather plant rubber.
Later, he carried buckets of concrete and water at construction sites until his eyesight began to fade.
Now, he hunts through sewage ditches to collect plastic bottles, knowing he could catch a serious disease doing so.
For him, the lure of earning 100 Liberian dollars (about US$1) by selling about 10-15 sachets while the bottle is been sold at 75.00 Liberian Dollars.
“This amount is too small to live on, but I have saved some percentage of it to afford to pay school fees for my kids,” he says.
It takes a lot of plastic to pay school fees for just one child. Brown’s oldest son, for example, needs 12,000 (about US$120.00) for fees for one year, plus additional money to pay for his exam, his uniform and other expenses.
“I’ve taken on the job of collecting plastic bottles for 10 years now, and my life has not really changed for the better,” he says.
“However, I can tell you, and I am delighted to be able to do so, that I was able to afford to pay school fees for my kids.”
In 2013, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf stressed that “access to high-quality early childhood development is among the smartest investments for the future” and described children as Liberia’s “greatest natural resource.” She went on to say:
“As government, we realize that we must work harmoniously with all partners to ensure access to early childhood education programs, to develop standardized and sustainable programs, and to build the capacities of early childhood education, in order to have a positive and favorable impact on the nation’s programs for children from birth through grade three,
The programs shall aim to provide all necessary opportunities for each child to develop the appropriate physical, mental, emotional and social skills, attitudes, and habits to enable him or her to proceed to the primary level and continue to learn and live a useful and productive life.”
The president also emphasized the need for cross-agency and cross-sector cooperation, pointing out that a child’s development includes not only education, but also health, nutrition, protection, gender, and future employment.
Recently the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announces the award of a US$33.9M contract to Education for Development Center for the implementation of USAID new Accelerated Quality Education for Liberia (AQE) activity, which focuses on over-age and out-of-school learners whose education was disrupted by the prolonged civil crisis.
In particular, AQE will use various interventions through an Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) to increase access to education for approximately 48,000 out-of-school children ages 8 to 15 in six targeted countries.