Monrovia – The Education NGO Forum of Liberia has challenged the government to ensure that unimplemented Education policies are enforced.
Report by Mae Azango, [email protected]
The group said Liberia has good policies on the books but implementing them has always been a problem for the government.
Ms. Josephine Gowoh Urey, chair of the Education NGO Forum named one of those dormant policies as the National Gender Policy and urged the Ministry of Education to devise a way to implement those “great education policies.”
Speaking at the just-ended three-day 2018 National Education Summit, held in Kakata, Margibi County, Ms. Urey stressed that there should be less time for talking and more for actions. She indicated that the Education sector has many good policies but have never been implemented.
She emphasized the need for decentralization of the sector throughout the country with what she described as “transparent and control measures” being put into place.
She urged the government to provide more support to education officers at county and district levels so that they can actively conduct effective monitoring and supervision.
Teacher’s professional development
Stressing the importance of teacher’s development, Ms. Urey called on the government to see teachers as partners.
“Recognizing the important role teachers play in shaping the minds of our students across Liberia, we encourage the Ministry of Education to pay more than lip service to teacher’s professional development. See them as partners in the quest of changing the narratives of Liberia’s educational sector, rather than valiant,” she said.
Teachers and other senior school administrators identified some issues including County Education Officers and District Education Officers being faced with difficulties in conducting their jobs and the need for the Ministry of Internal Affairs to set a standard that will discourage the act of taking young girls and boys from schools to be taken into the Sande and Poro societies.
Education Minister Prof. Ansu D. Sonii told participants, who had been divided into smaller groups, to include the teaching of a local language from any of the tribes, to be taught at the national level in all schools.
Mr. John B. S. Davies, president of the Liberia Bankers Association, who served as one of the panelists, suggested that feeding programs be brought back into the school system, as it benefited him as a child. “What made me stayed in school during my early childhood days was not the ABC but it was the food prepared in the schools, called ‘care food’ in those days.”
Brenda Brewer Moore, executive director of Kids Educational Engagement Program (KEEP), who also served as one of the panelists, spoke on the importance of establishing reading rooms in schools in order to enhance the learning capacity for mainly children in the primary division.
The 2018 Education Summit ended with participants writing down suggestions as way-forwards to improving the educational sector. Education Minister Sonii promised to evaluate the various suggestions and put them into practice.
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