A looming education outsourcing predicament reminiscent of some recent missteps, pitfalls regarding concessions
IN 1926, Liberia negotiated a Firestone Concession Agreement and two additional agreements, obtaining a one-million acre concession for a 99-year period, granting the company exclusive rights and exemptions from future taxes. The company was granted unlimited rights over an area equal to 4 per cent of the country’s territory and nearly 10 per cent of what was considered the arable land in the country. As part of the icing on the cake, Firestone lent $5 million to the Liberian Government through a wholly-owned and especially for this purpose created subsidiary, the Finance Corporation of Liberia.
THE STORY WAS similar with the much-touted Buchanan Renewables, who with backing from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a little known U.S. government agency, received some US$217 million in loan approvals from 2008 to 2011to convert nonproducing rubber trees into biomass chips that would help power Liberia.
THE TRAVAILS of concessions like BRE were summed up by in 2013 when an audit of lucrative resource deals in Liberia found that almost all the concessions awarded by the government since 2009 were not compliant with the law. In the damning report commissioned by the Liberian government, international auditors found that only two out of 68 resource contracts worth $8bn (£5.1bn) were conducted properly. Concessions granted in agriculture, forestry, mining and oil – including a lucrative deal with oil company Chevron – were either wholly or partially flawed.
QUITE RECENTLY, the Liberian government was at it again with yet another controversial plan when it entered into a public-private partnership education plan by signing a memorandum of understanding with Bridge International Academies, a low-cost nursery and primary private school chain that uses a technology-based approach to provide standardized education to students in developing countries.
THE PLAN WAS immediately greeted with backlash and a firestorm of criticism from teachers, civil society groups, and even the UN special rapporteur on the right to education, Kishore Singh who said the proposed venture is a gross violation of the human rights of Liberian children and their education.
DESPITE RESERVATIONS, and concerns, the Education Ministry under Minister George Werner pressed ahead with the MOU in the absence of getting any kind of consensus ore sampling of what stakeholders and ordinary Liberians thought about it.
The pilot project will start with about 50 schools. Subject areas include English, mathematics, science, social studies, and moral education, according to the memorandum of understanding. Each teacher will be supplied with an e-reader tablet running Bridge’s operating system and applications to which all lessons and a teacher resource library will be published.
NOW NEW INFORMATION is emerging this week that suggest the Minister is now having second thoughts and asking questions, after the fact and after the signing of the MOU with Bridge.
IN DOCUMENTS OBTAINED by FrontPageAfrica this week, which include briefing notes from a confidential meeting held this week, between Minister Werner and Partnership Schools for Liberia Stakeholders, the minister expressed concerns over Bridge’s method amid reports that education partners may be contemplating walking away if the Minister insists on the Randomized Control Trial, which Bridge does not want to agree to.
SAID MINISTER WERNER: “Until we know whether Bridge is going to step out of the RCT, we cannot proceed with randomization, and thus, finalizing school lists. If Bridge opt to submit their own list of schools, we may need to remove some these schools from the lists allocated on Friday and this morning. Bridge were speaking with their board today and we hope to have a decision imminently. As soon as we hear back, we will notify providers affected by the reallocation and we hope to proceed with randomization tomorrow – as planned (provided we all agree the rejection criteria).” – Mr. George Werner, Minister of Education, in a meeting with Partnership Schools for Liberia Stakeholders
WHILE IT MAY be a little too late to quarterback, we are encouraged that Minister Werner is seeing the light into what some of those critical of the Bridge plan, have been saying all along.
THE QUESTION IS HOW much of a value does Bridge has for Liberia?
SO ARE PARTNERSHIP SCHOOLS for Liberia Stakeholders who according to the communication noted: “If Bridge opt to submit their own list of schools, we may need to remove some these schools from the lists allocated.”
IT IS CLEAR that the unequal terms, Bridge is proposing is rattling cages and unsettling nerves which could only suggest that this controversial plan may not be the best solution or saving grace for Liberia’s messy education system.
TODAY, ABOUT 1.5 million Liberian children are enrolled in primary schools with roughly only 20 percent of the children successfully completing the 12th grade.
IT IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT TO SAY that years of civil war have contributed to the maiming of the nation’s education system which saw nearly 25,000 students fail the University of Liberia entrance exams in 2013.
BRIDGE’S INTENTIONS maybe well meaning, but many remain unconvinced about how their programs will transform the lives of pupils and youngsters in towns and villages without electricity, drinking water and lights for study will benefit?
IF BRIDGE is already having issues over Random Control Trial, and in disagreement over the number of schools that will be selected, what happens to those who are hit by the door on the way out? What happens to the false hopes being trumpeted over a program that looks good on paper but falls short of the blueprint that can address the more pressing dilemma facing Liberia’s messy education system.
THE SAD REALITY is that there appears to be more attention to the needs and wishes of the providers, Bridge, than the interests and position of the government and young boys and girls, particularly those having very little knowledge about how this controversial plan will impact their lives for the better.