Education remains essential to solving many of the economic and social problems globally, and its purpose has remained the same—to pass on knowledge from one generation to the next. However, in Liberia, like in many other African countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has proven that the traditional classroom method of teaching predominantly being practiced by the country lacks resilience in the face of global pandemic of the magnitude we have seen over the past few months of 2020.
By Caroline Wonokay Gezaye, Contributing Writer
Also, the content of our education curricula at various levels of our educational system remains weak and lacks current world realities. Under the traditional system of education, a book and a pen are the essentials for attending classes while researchers require visits to the library. During classes, the teachers bring a bunch of material to better illustrate the subject to the students. The students must also be physically present in class for the teacher to teach. But education systems across the world have evolved considerably, even though the purpose has remained the same; and it becomes essential that the future generations are educated within the context of current realities so that they continue to advance society and impart their knowledge and wisdom to next generations.
It is quintessential to be reminded that education is a basic human right. Yet in Liberia, children’s access to education is limited by numerous factors including constraints on national finances, poor infrastructure, and unskilled teachers. Many children still do not have the opportunity to learn, especially if they live in poverty-stricken or rural areas. Children living in poverty also face many barriers to accessing education. Some of these barriers are obvious, like not having schools to go to; while others are subtler, like the teacher at the school not having the training needed to help children learn effectively. Increasing access to education can improve the overall health and longevity of a society and grow economies. But Liberia’s educational system continues to face numerous challenges. These challenges have resulted to poor learning outcomes, over-age enrollment and huge number of out-of-school children. In addition, the education sector also faces serious equity challenges including important geographic differences in access to quality education. For example, at the W.T. Workloh Elementary School in Grand Kru County pictured below, some 83 students sit in a less than 100 square meter classroom building made of mud brick nearing collapse[1]. Also, more than 40 public elementary schools in Nimba County’s 17 administrative districts lack teachers while some are being controlled by just single instructors. A classic example of the deplorable condition of educational facilities in Nimba County is Garr Whipa Public School where some students even sit on the floor to learn (see picture below).[2]
While the education system in Liberia faces many challenges, this paper has highlighted the followings that policymakers can begin to focus on:
Limited funding: According to Global Partnership for Education (GPE), it costs on average $1.25 a day per child in developing countries to provide 13 years of education. However, most developing countries are unable to provide adequate funding to meet this target and GPE reports that there is currently a $39 billion gap to provide quality education to all children by 2030. While developing countries cannot rely solely on their own financing for education but need more foreign aid to supplement domestic resources, GPE reports that only 20% of aid for education goes to low-income countries. Though GPE encourages developing countries to contribute 20% of their national budget to education, and allocate 45% of it to primary education, most developing countries fail to meet this target. In Liberia, for example, the allotment for the education sector for fiscal year 2019/2020 represented only15.8%—far below regional neighbors like Sierra Leone which allocated 27% while Ghana and Senegal invested 35% each from their national budgets.[3] . It is therefore time for the Government of Liberia to step forward and make the appropriate investment in filling the funding gap in education to save its future generation like other neighboring countries are current doing. This can be done incrementally but a reduction must never be entertained. Additional funding for education could also be sourced from the lucrative amounts allocated to the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of government to help prepare a future generation that would take Liberia to a new height.
Untrained teachers: Teachers’ effectiveness has been found to be the most important predictor of student learning outcome. A GPE report states that there are 130 million children in school who are not learning basic skills like reading, writing and math. The UN also estimates that 69 million new teachers are required globally to achieve universal primary and secondary education by 2030. To offer every child primary education, 25.8 million school teachers need to be recruited. Meanwhile, in 1 out of every 3 countries, less than three-quarters of teachers are trained to national standards. In Liberia, for example, just over 50 percent or half of the teaching workforce has the minimum qualification required to teach at the grade levels they are teaching. At the primary level, research has shown that 62.3 percent of teachers are qualified, compared to 33.1 and 33.9 percent of teachers at the junior high and senior high levels respectively. In Early Childhood Education (ECE), only 49.2 percent of teachers are considered qualified; however, the minimum qualification held by most ECE teachers is a ‘C’ Certificate, which focuses on preparing primary school teachers and does not offer any ECE-specific training. The Ministry of education could quickly train more qualified teachers who are willing to teach in classrooms to solve this problem.
But the ability of the government to effectively design, implement and monitor education policy and programs that ensure trained teachers are in the classrooms will ultimately depend on hiring and retaining good quality people who are willing to subscribe to coherent terms of reference and accountability mechanisms to assure satisfactory performance. This will however hinge on the ability of the government to be realistic in hiring, and providing an appropriate incentive structure commensurate with teachers’ responsibilities. If government teachers, instructors and professors are not remunerated at a satisfactory level, it will be difficult to hire and retain qualified people that will be motivated and committed to leading the Ministry of Education’s efforts to developing the education sector. A more innovative solution to recruiting personnel in the classrooms would be keeping track of MOE database of oversea students, partnering with national universities and education-related NGOs to help fill some of the critical manpower needs of the education system.
Weak implementation capacity: The structures for managing education exist at the national, county, district and school levels based on the Education Reform Law of 2011. According the Act, each county has a County Education Officer (CEO), District Education Officers (DEOs) and principals for each school. The Ministry of Education is also in the process of re-constituting the County School Boards (CSBs) for the 15 counties as required by law. But the Education Reform Law of 2011 law not been fully operationalized and given the teeth to bite and ensure that there are county structures to effectively deliver quality and affordable education. Education-related matters have and are still being politicized and not treated as an emergency. Also, the majority of CSBs members, CEOs and DEOs have not received professional training related to their job descriptions, and the MOE has neither developed training programs nor a clear MOE guidance or tools to support these staff in the execution of their job responsibilities. Additionally, CEOs and DEOs do not appear to have the material and financial resources required to successfully fulfill their job descriptions. Specifically, CEOs and DEO lack sufficient resources to support their M&E teams in various schools across the country to conduct periodic school monitoring and quality assurance activities. At the school level, majority of principals have not received extensive training with regards to the responsibilities of their job. Many researches done by international NGOs suggest that the majority of Liberian school principals do not have degrees, diplomas, or certification related to their work[4]The same problem also extends to the university level; most of the instructors are not qualify to teach at the levels they are teaching. For example, B.Sc. holders teach undergraduate students at higher levels while in most of the graduate programs, master’s degree holders teach students preparing for similar degree. But according to quality education standard, bachelor’s degree holders are not supposed to teach B.Sc. students while a master’s degree holder should not be teaching students working on master’s degree. MOE should therefore begin a campaign to recruit all those who were sent for higher degree studies abroad on government scholarships during the past and current regimes to help contribute to the reform process. The government should also create a database containing contact information of all students that leave the country to study abroad on government scholarships and be able to track them upon completion and return from their studies[5]. Such database will enable government ensure that every beneficiary, upon completion and return to the country, will render services to government for the period of two years to enable MOE fill some of the current gaps in our education system.
Inefficiency in implementation of school curriculum and teaching-learning materials: In 2019, Liberia launched the reformed national school curriculum. The new curriculum is competency-based where students will acquire skills alongside the basic academic aspects, thus doing away with the content-based syllabus that does not derive skills. The new curriculum for both public and private schools include comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) to promote reproductive health, peace building, human rights, general history of Africa and other emerging issues that are based on skills development rather than content development. But there are challenges associated with implementation of the new curriculum; teachers have not received orientation of the new curriculum and they have little or no knowledge and skills of learner-centered pedagogies. The curriculum also lacks the relevant teaching-learning materials including textbooks, workbooks, teacher guides etc. The Ministry of Education should therefore provide the necessary teaching-learning materials and training as soon as possible to make the curriculum effective and usable. MOE should also blend the curriculum with vocational skill training for a better outcome. The overall importance of including vocational training in our education system in Liberia is to enhance employment opportunities for the youth. The rate of growth of an economy cannot be accelerated, if in particular, the labor-intensive sector is generally lacking applicable skills among the work force. So, MOE should focus on technological innovations more because it can solve the problem of teacher shortages in schools—thanks to the existence of the internet connection because a teacher can teach in different schools at the same time.
Poor infrastructure and limited classroom facilities: Children in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, most especially Liberia, are often either squeezed into overcrowded classrooms or classrooms that are falling apart, or are learning outside of the classrooms. They also lack textbooks, school supplies, and other tools they need to excel. In Liberia, for example, there is an average of 90 children per classroom in most elementary schools. It is not just the lack of classrooms that is the problem, but also all the basic facilities you would expect a school to have like running water and toilets are lacking. Also, only few schools have potable water, and just 1 in 4 has a toilet. Moreover, only one-third of the toilets that do exist are for girls only — a real disincentive and barrier for girls to come to school. When girls lack access to safe toilets, they are often harassed or attacked when looking for a private place to go. Girls also miss or drop out of school when they begin menstruating if they don’t have the sanitation facilities or sanitary products to manage their periods with pride and dignity. With only 56 percent of schools having functional sanitation facilities, it is important that minimum basic sanitation requirements are fulfilled in schools because a child cannot learn without the right environment. MOE should therefore collaborate with our development partners to help with the construction of school buildings and sanitation facilities in locations across the country that don’t currently have, to ensure the betterment of our society and learning conditions for our students—most especially our female students.
Distance to school: For many children around Sub-Saharan Africa, most especially in rural Liberia, a walk to school for up to three to four hours in each direction are not uncommon. This is just too much for many children, particularly children living with disabilities, those suffering from malnutrition or illness, or those who are required to work around the household. Imagine having to set off for school hungry at 5 a.m. every day not to return until 7 p.m. Many children, especially girls, are also vulnerable to violence on their long and hazardous journeys to and from school. Our law makers should therefore allocate special fund within their budgets for the construction of schools in the remote areas within their individual districts to resolve some of these challenges for the betterment of their citizens.
Limited innovation in teaching and learning: The ways to teach and learn have changed with time due to technological and scientific progress. Today’s generation of students in many countries where technology is vital may wonder how people used to study without internet. Most countries have taken advantage of scientific developments and adopted innovative ways of providing education to their future generation. Those countries that were ahead are able to reap the benefits of innovative learning during this period of global pandemic. Thanks to the internet—their kids don’t have to miss out on the school year since they can complete the academic works online. But because Liberia is still trapped in the traditional mode of providing education, even its university students have to miss full semester because of the pandemic—least to mention those at the grade levels. MOE’s current efforts on providing a platform for radio learning is commendable; but such efforts should be expanded to include other distance learning platforms like TV, mobile sites and other applications for free training in different areas. I highly recommend that policy makers take advantage of the telecommunication network connectivity and local radio stations in all the 15 counties to promote virtual or online learning. Online teaching should also be promoted at the universities and community college levels—technological innovations have solved the problem of teacher shortages in schools.
In conclusion, a lot more has to be done if education must reach desirable heights. The government has to muster the political will to achieve a minimum of 20 percent or more budgetary allotment to education as recommended by GPE. The Liberian government needs to commit itself to financing education because it is a constitutional mandate to do so. Article six of the 1986 Liberian Constitution, The Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development, especially Pillar One (Power to the People) which emphasizes the need to provide quality, inclusive and life-long education to the public. as well as adopted international instruments such as the UN Convention on the Right of the Child (UNCRC), Incheon Declaration, Dakar Framework and UN Sustainable Development Goal # 4 coupled with the 2019 Abidjan Principal are instruments that commit the Liberian government to improving the education system to international best practice for the betterment of future generation.
[1] FrontPage Africa report, 2018
[2] FrontPage Africa report, 2020
[3] Reported by the Coalition for Transparency and Accountability in Education (COTAE), 2018
[4] Findings of studies by the World Bank Group, Global Partnership for Education and MOE, 2011, 2014 and 2015.