Monrovia – Despite the challenges facing our communities, Liberians place paramount value on education.
Liberian students and their families deserve a better education system, and close scrutiny of our education system is necessary if we are to improve it.
The Ministry of Education welcomes such scrutiny as part of our commitment to strengthening systems of mutual accountability, through which institutions and communities hold ourselves and each other to high standards.
In this spirit, the Ministry of Education today announces that it is convening a committee to review the outcomes of our national examinations.
The public will recall that results of the May 2016 Liberian Junior High School Certificate Examinations (LJHSCE) and Liberian Senior High School Certificate Examinations (LSHSCE) (the latter administered in June) were recently released. The review, however, shall not concentrate solely on the 2016 results.
Instead, the committee has a broader mandate: it is tasked with analysing why Liberian students perform poorly or otherwise in national examinations.
The committee to be called the Public Examinations Review Committee, or ‘PERC’, shall be autonomous, although the Government will make available all information and assistance necessary.
The Committee shall be co-chaired by Sr Mary Laurene Browne, OSF, President of Stella Maris Polytechnic and respected educational leader, and Cllr T. Negbalee Warner, Dean of the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law, University of Liberia, and highly regarded for work on transparency and public accountability.
They will be joined by representatives of civil society and members with expertise in education and data analysis.
Her Excellency President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has welcomed the review, and expressed her full confidence in the Co-Chairs.
The Committee will meet with stakeholders, solicit submissions from the public, and collate data from a range of sources.
The Committee is empowered by the Ministry of Education and the Government of Liberia to request information from educational institutions and other relevant bodies.
Disaggregated data on student results over several years have been requested from the WAEC national office to inform the review’s analysis (noting that students’ right to privacy will respected in all publication of data).
The Government of Liberia’s education reform agenda, ‘Getting to Best’, includes a focus on improving accountability to parents, students and communities. Careful analysis of all data is an important part of fostering accountability.
The Ministry and the Government are asking the Committee to report to the Minister of Education within 90 days, or to advise if more time is required, and the Minister will publish this report.
In the meantime, the Ministry of Educations commends the committee to this task, and urges all members of the public and institutions to provide the committee with accurate and timely information.