The Informer (Monrovia)
Roland Perry
9 September 2009
Massive renovation works have begun at the Charles D. B. Kings Elementary School in Central Monrovia, barely a day after President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf suspended Education Minister Dr. Joseph Korto and two of his deputies.
President Sirleaf Monday morning suspended, for one week without pay, the Education Minister and his deputies -- Mr. James E. Roberts, Deputy Minister of Planning and Economic Affairs, and Mrs. Hester Williams Catakaw, Deputy Minister for Instruction -- for 'negligence', after she visited the E. Jonathan Goodridge High School in Bardnersville Estate, and saw the school in a deplorable condition.
Like the E. J. Goodridge High School, few kilometers outside Monrovia, the C D. B. King Elementary School situated in Central Monrovia, is also in an appalling state, but renovation works began on the public school yesterday, September 8, 2009.
Taking The Informer's reporter on a guided tour of the school's damaged facilities, the Vice Principal, Madam Mary Mappy, said the institution needs urgent renovation work, which, according to her, will afford students to have a better leaning environment.
Madam Mappy added that the school presently lacks adequate instructional materials such as text books, armed chairs, and desk, as well as other materials for instructors to enhance the leaning capacity of the students.
She said the roof of the school, and the bath rooms, currently under renovation, were in very dreadful conditions, which impeded normal leaning activities at the school.
Madam Mappy however thanked the Monrovia Consolidated School System (MCSS), which has oversight responsibility over the school, for initiating the renovation work.
She disclosed that the work will cover the changing of part of the damaged roof of the school, bathrooms, ceiling as well as whitewashing of the school's facilities.
The Vice Principal is however calling on the Government of Liberia, through the Ministry of education, and local and international non-governmental organizations, to assist the school with text books, arm chairs and other necessary instructional materials to enhance the smooth running of one of the oldest government institutions of leaning in the country.
Under Pillar IV of the government Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS), which tackles rehabilitating infrastructure and delivering basic social services, the government targeted the construction of 40 primary schools consisting of 240 classrooms, and four secondary schools comprising of 54 classrooms.
The PRS outlines the rebuilding or repairing of 33 primary schools and six secondary schools; the provision of 14,150 chairs, build 82 latrines and provide 82 wells and hand pumps.
The PRS also targets the recruitment and training of qualified teachers, by reopening three regional teacher training institutes to train between 650 and 1,000 new teachers annually, and constructs 105 teacher houses in hardship locations. Two of the regional teacher training institutes -- Kakata Rural Teacher Training Institute and the Zorzor Rural Teacher Training Institute - have been reopened, but both producing less than 400 hundred teachers, after their first graduation exercises in the last 20 years.
The PRS also dreams of increase primary school net enrolment rate from 37.3 to 44.8 percent, as an initial step toward achieving universal primary education by 2015.
The C.D.B. King Elementary School was established in 1952, by President William V.S. Tubman in honor of the late Presidents of Liberia, Charles D.B. King, for latter's role in promoting education in Liberia.
The school has served as a foundation for many Liberians, some of whom are today's key decision-makers in the country, including the likes of Alhaji Kromah, former Standard Bearer of the All Liberian Collation Party (ALCOP). Contact 2316270297, perryroland@rocketmail.com.
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