Report by Mae Azango, [email protected]
Kakata, Margibi County – Senator Dallas A. Gueh of the Senate Committee on Education has said that the nation’s educational system needs a resurrection and that all education stakeholders need to put hands on deck to achieve this revival.
Making remarks at the ongoing 2018 National Education Summit in Kakata, Margibi County, Sen. Gueh disclosed that the budget submitted to the National Legislature is just enough to only service salaries, while little is there for programs and activities of the Ministry of Education.
“If other countries in Africa, under a UNICEF program, have committed 25 percent of their national budgets to education, why can’t Liberia do the same? The only thing we need is the political will, which is always not there. It is time we muster the courage to do so. Mr. Minister, I am going to work with you along with my colleagues at the Senate to ensure that even if we do not reach the 25 percent, we will at least be able to raise something around 20 percent.”
Speaking further, he didn’t only attribute the poor performance of Liberian students in the regional West African Examination Council (WAEC) tests, to spending more time on social media than studying, but also blamed the ‘system;’ adding: “The system is responsible. Go back and see who the teachers are. I stand to be corrected, but 50 percent of our educators are not teachers, they have not learned the art of teaching because they were not trained as teachers.”
The ongoing National Education Summit, being held at the Booker Washington Institute (BWI) campus, is said to be the first Summit after 34 years since 1984 under then Education Minister Dr. George Boley.
The Summit, which commenced on Monday, May 21, through Wednesday, May 23, brought together stakeholders, foreign and local partners, school administrators and civil society actors on education, to discuss a way forward in the improvement of the educational sector of Liberia.
Speaking on the present state of the educational system, ranging from unqualified and insufficient teachers to poor performance of students, Education Minister Prof. Ansu D. Sonii described the educational system as being in a deplorable and shameful state.
He asked rhetorically, “Is there a Vice Principal for Instruction, who is inspecting the lesson plans? Does he/she visit the classrooms to see if teachers are even present in the first place, least to say what they are teaching? Where are the District Educational Officers (DEO)? what inspections are they conducting? Where are those charged with the responsibilities to make sure that teachers are in the classrooms? This is a shame and we have to change these things. We are targeting 10 years for reform education; we shall work together to know which things we should do first and those things we are to do last. It is scary, but we cannot do all of it at once,” said Prof. Sonii.
Doing a power point presentation, the Education Minister disclosed that there are over 2000 public schools, containing more than 742,000 students; with 7,249 teachers. This brings the ratio to 158 students to a teacher in the primary division, while there are 126 students per teacher in other levels.
According to him, the ratio of teachers to schools is even lower, as there are principals who are teaching.
“What education do you expect from that kind of number? We are saying on the average, there should be 50 students to a teacher, and in doing that, we were left with 14,000 teachers to 742,000 students as per the 2016 data. And out of the 14,000 teachers, if we must train, certificate and place in the classrooms, the number will drop to 7,500 teachers. For which we have targeted to be done in the period of three years, as we cannot do all in the period of a year,” said Prof. Sonii.
WAEC results
As he did his presentation further, he became visibly disappointed when he described students’ performance in the 2017 WAEC result. He described it as “deplorable and shameful for outsiders to see.”
“Just imagine for history, there were 27,800 students, who took the history exams, and only 20 of those students passed division 3-6. In other places, when students have divisions seven and eight, you are not qualified to go to college, but for us, we take up to division eight. 17,478 students passed under condition. When we go to Geography for example, we found out that many students failed because they could not even read road maps and do not know where Liberia is. That is a shame for just only one person to pass in division three,” said Prof. Sonii.
“What are we teaching these students, and who is teaching them? WAEC results in 2017, 136 passed biology, 233 passed chemistry and 141 passed economics while only 50 passed the literature, can you imagine this?”
Senator Oscar Cooper spoke on the investment in Early Childhood Education from kindergarten level to grade six. “My wife and I have been running an Early Childhood school for the past 10 years because it is very important. In that it builds the foundation of the child, that when he or she reaches secondary education, it would be easy for the child.”
Mr. David Baysah, a Senior Technical Advisor on Education, listed the Ministry’s reform mechanisms put in place to improve the educational sector. The mechanisms include training of more teachers, giving certificates to qualified teachers and monitoring the students and classrooms.
“We intend to take our students from divisions seven and eight to divisions one to six in the West African Senior School Examinations (WASSE),” Baysah added.
USAID Director, Dr. Anthony S. Chan, committed the United States government to support the educational sector of Liberia.