Monrovia – Turning the messy educational system to a more appreciated level seems to require a more robust and practical action.
The Ministry of Education recently pronounced a lot of reform measures, ranging from the controversial Public Private Partnership to the testing of teachers nationwide which has led to public uproar.
Some believe that the poor performance of students can be attributed to low capacity and training of teachers across the country.
The test being administered by the Ministry to some teachers has been described by the National Teachers Association of Liberia (NTAL) as a witch-hunt to get them out of the classroom.
However, Assistant Minister for Teacher Education, Advertus Wright, has refuted claims that the exercise is intended to take job from teachers.
“We are conducting an exercise to test our teachers,” he says. “You know we all are aware that the system is a mess which was pronounced by our President. We are trying to move it from mess to best.”
He continued: “Part of taking it from mess to best—we instituted a lot of measures. The first step is to go through the biometric, and we did some verification to actually know who those teachers are.”
Minister Wright said that the teacher test began in three counties, Nimba, Bong and Montserrado.
“We did three counties, Nimba, Bong and Montserrado. Actually, it was kind of rough at the beginning—it was left with us to explain to the teachers that this exercise is not intended to get them from the classroom,” the Assistant Minister added.
“It’s intended to determine the content knowledge and capacity of each teacher, to determine the training need of each teacher. We will use the result to make inform administrative decision, who to replace or retain. This test is to help MOE properly deploy and redeploy, according to the level of competence.”
He said the MoE has been engaging the NTAL at all levels during this process.
“The Minister proper has always engaged the National Teacher Association on all issues. I feel very good; I think the teachers are beginning to understand that this process is a very good process.”
At the end of the process, he said teachers will be granted a license to teach.
“We are actually leading to license teachers. All these things need to be put in place. We need to make them to understand what it is to be teaching. It’s our responsibility to put into place the right refresher educational material to enhance their capacity.”
He added that teachers who perform excellently will be selected to form part of the process. “We are trying to make sure that remote areas also have qualified teachers.”
He noted that giving teachers a test is quite a novelty in Liberia, adding that it is done all over the world. “It would have been much better if we had started this year back; we want to make teaching a profession rather than a job.”
