Monrovia – The ongoing debate on a proposed private, public partnership program for the basic primary education sector of Liberia continues with intriguing exchanges between Education Minister George K. Werner, the architect of the program and other actors in the education and human rights sectors.
Besides the local fight between the Education Minister on one side and civil society organizations and teachers association on the other, a senior United Nations Human Rights officials recently added his voice to the debate when he raised the issue of the Human rights of Liberian children especially their rights to education, a responsibility of the Government of Liberia.
Kishore Singh, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to education argued that the Government of Liberia has an obligation to Liberian children to provide them quality education and such obligation should not be waived to a private entity.
Singh further opined in his argument that contracting the management of the primary education sector of Liberia to a private entity runs contrary to commitments by the Government of Liberia and the international Community as provided in the fourth UN Sustainable Development Goal to provide education for children.
“Such arrangements are a blatant violation of Liberia’s international obligations under the right to education, and have no justification under Liberia’s constitution. This also contradicts political commitments made by Liberia and the international community to the fourth UN Sustainable Development Goal which is on education and related targets”, stated Singh.
In countering the many criticisms of the proposed program, Minister Werner insists that the public sector alone cannot handle the many problems facing the country education system.
“Change is not easy. The public system alone cannot address these challenges singlehandedly. We have some great public schools in Liberia but we have far too few of them. And we already have a diverse set of school operators from government and non-government sectors in our education system”, stated Minister Werner in an OP-Ed to FrontPageAfrica.
Minister Werner goes wild
As the Minister continues his fight to ensure the success of the program other members of the Liberian public took to the social media discussing the deal and the Minister also is not letting any sleeping dog to lie, responding to every inquiry from the public.
Adam M. Dorley, a Liberian commenting on the proposed program wrote on March 29 stating in a facebook post “There re always too sides to a story. For those teacher Association or union that resistant to change and always want things there old way, they need to do the Liberian people a favor and bring us some empirical data supporting position what the GOL should not start a pilot program with Bridge”
Laks Mani, another discussant responded to Dorley and stated “their results in the pilot program they started in Kenya were promising n beat expectation. That’s why their re expanding there”.
Minister Werner then took on the debate when he went wild against the UN official stating “The UN guy is stupid! He never spoke to the government of Liberia, it’s human rights Commission, and UN institutions in Liberia. It gave a judgment based on hearsay. I wonder if you have read my OP Ed in Front-page and Capitol Premier, what we’re doing is very different from what the so called human rights agent talks about in the letter. What rights are being denied Liberian children?”-
A shock Mani responded to the Minister comments and stated “really George? Unravelling isn’t when suddenly you now call UN expert “stupid” gosh. Dorley then added that from what he has noticed it’s more of misinformation campaign from those opposing the deal, a comment that prompted Minister Werner to further defend the program.
“Laks, the parents who are paying 5 to 7 dollars per month are not complaining. The Kenyan government, with which I met, has two concerns of Bridge, Curriculum and teachers. In the end, I thought it was more of the politics than anything substantial. Bridge schools are our performing government schools. These are facts. Liberians parents won’t be paying fees as this has been legislated. Over the past decade, we’ve brought over 1.5 million children to school but there is no quality. Equity by gender and geography and income is just about narrowed, especially at the early childhood development and primary levels. What human Rights are we denying”?
Mani in another post challenged Minister Werner to prove that parents are not complaining about Bridge performance in Kenya, as he challenged the Minister to prove that by stating that the Kenyan government is also satisfied with the performance of Bridge is inaccurate and misleading.
Speaking on ignorance
Minister Werner responding to inquiry from another post about the wellbeing of teachers in the entire program declared that based on a mandate from President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, he met with the Minister of Education of Kenya before again describing the UN Human Rights Rapporteur as somebody speaking out of ignorance.
Stated Minister Werner “I met with my counterpart, the Minister of Education in Kenya. My President demanded that I do so prior to making any decisions. By the way, he’s Kenyan Kissii. Bridge success caught the politicians off guard. In the votes rich slums, Bridge is gaining grounds. The Nairobi government, opposition to the national government, favors Bridge. They have to. The National Government has concerns but these are not about the results but about politics of votes in the slums”.
“Yes every word meant. How could he make such a statement without engaging all? I’m writing him or her a letter to that effect. It was a statement based on ignorance. As a UN Human Rights Rapporteur, one would think he or she would know better”, stated Minister Werner.
In spite of the local debate, UN Human rights expert sees it differently, differing with Werner’s proposal and disagreeing with Liberia’s quest to gain profit from a fragile situation.
Singh believes that public schools and their teachers, and the concept of education as a public good, are under attack if the plan is allowed to go into gear, declaring: “Such arrangements are a blatant violation of Liberia’s international obligations under the right to education, and have no justification under Liberia’s constitution,” the Special Rapporteur stated. “This also contradicts political commitments made by Liberia and the international community to the fourth UN Sustainable Development Goal which is on education and related targets.”
Singh argues that “Provision of public education of good quality is a core function of the State. Abandoning this to the commercial benefit of a private company constitutes a gross violation of the right to education.”
Taking pointed jabs at Werner’s argument that the schools will remain within the public sector, owned, financed, regulated and quality assured by government, with support from external donors, Mr. Singh states that it is rather ironic that Liberia does not have resources to meet its core obligations to provide a free primary education to every child, but it can find huge sums of money to subcontract a private company to do so on its behalf.
It is an argument that Werner and the Sirleaf administration, critics say could struggle to explain as more international stakeholders weigh in on what is undoubtedly becoming a controversial and polarizing issue for the administration. Singh’s position marks a rare criticism for the Sirleaf administration which has enjoyed overwhelming international support but has struggled against a wave of domestic frailties.
As Singh argues the sums paid to private firms could be much better spent on improving the existing system of public education and supporting the educational needs of the poor and marginalized.
A conglomerate of civil society organizations United Civil Society for Education Dialogue (UNICED), along with the Teachers Association of Liberia, we have expressed stern opposition to the proposed program.
In several letters to President Sirleaf, House of Representatives Speaker Alex Tyler, the head of the Public Procurement and Concession Commission Dorbor Jallah and others, the group expressed reservation over the plan
“We wish to inform you about our stern opposition to plans by the Liberian Government, chiefly the Ministry of Education to establish Public Private Partnership in Education, which essentially seeks to outsource public basic and primary schools to private and for-profit multi-national institutions”, stated the group.
Meanwhile FrontPageAfrica has gathered that while the debate surrounding the proposed deal is ongoing, the Ministry of Education is resolved and also already concluded an MOU with Bridge.
One source told FPA that an official of the Education Ministry has already started informing his colleagues about advertisement for positions for the monitoring of the project.
