Liberia: Is MOE Genuinely Executing Its Core Functions?

FORMER PRESIDENT ELLEN JOHNSON Sirleaf once disparaged the educational system of the country while in office as sitting President charged with the responsibilities of superintending institutions of government and improving every system for the good of citizens. Upon return to the country from a foreign trip, she was greeted with a disturbing protest by students for lack of teachers in the classrooms. Amongst many other issues, she descended on the entire education system, describing it as "Mess." Though, as president, she must have spoken from vintage point, but not many Liberians took her classification lightly; she was despised and heavily traduced. Almost a decade after Madam Sirleaf scathing attack on the country's education system, the question that still stands out is whether she was wrong in her classification.

OF COURSE, SEVERAL YEARS after Liberia's devastating civil war that left almost everything - including its society, economy, politics and infrastructure dysfunctional, and despite sustained efforts to resuscitate the situation - the education system remains dodgy and wobble, still struggling to catch up. There are translucently glaring evidence that the entire school system of the Republic appears to be in free-fall, far less comparable to sub-regional improvements or standards. This situation, as troubling is has become, has brought into question the effectiveness of the Ministry of Education (MoE) in the execution of its core statutory responsibilities of supervising, monitoring and even taking practical and decisive actions to change the dynamics, ensuring that learning institutions operate in line with acceptable norms that bring dignity to the system and the country in general.

LIBERIANS, MAINLY PARENTS, ARE often reminded of the soundness of the education system prior to the civil war, to the extent where foreign students rushed here to acquire secondary as well as tertiary education. If the success was due to the effectiveness of the system put in place at the time, why not the MoE looks beyond her shoulders by pursuing or reintroducing those actions, policies and programs? The most strikingly disappointing part of the whole system collapse has to do with what's happening in most public schools where pregnant female students are allowed to remain in school till the end of the academic year. It beats imagination that in this modern age, Liberia's education system provides such an embarrassing platform that pampers girl students in school while pregnant.

IF THIS IS AN approved national policy that guarantees female students privileges to go school knowingly pregnant, then something has to be done to reverse such fiendishly unkempt and quizzical policy it because it sets a very dangerous precedent that does not elevate Liberia's education portfolio. What sense does it make to keep a girl in school among other students, knowing fully she has an overgrown pregnancy? How does the MOE explain and defend such policy, if it is indeed a policy? But if this is new phenomenal nurtured by school administrators acting in cohort with parents, not to the knowledge of officials of the Ministry of Education that some schools are encouraging waywardness and keeping pregnant female students in school, then it is high time they took up the issue and seek immediate remedy. Besides this rather discomforting situation that has the proclivity to further dent the already "messy" education system is the issue of people having freewill in the system -doing as they wish.

FOR EXAMPLE, IT IS become very clear that dozens of schools are open to the public every school year. Substandard schools mushroomed every settlement of Monrovia - and whether they obtain permits and meet the criteria to run a school remains the hard-to-handle conjecture. And since Liberia is just a country where citizens go for everything because of the associated financial difficulties - unable to send their kids to good and standard schools - they care less about the rest and bundle their kids anywhere someone opens a school. If thorough checks are done, one would find out that most schools, mainly the so-called day cares or elementary schools, do not have permits to operate. This is how dangerous, backward, messy and ineffective the system has become , leaving students vulnerable and undermining their potential to excel and cope.

THERE IS NO NAYSAYING the fact that the Ministry of Education is not too much on-top of its game, not effective in implementing and executing its core statutory guidance. And it is worrisome that this ugliness is happening right before the Ministry, how much more in the leeward counties. District and County Education Officers (DEO Or CEO) now have a greater role to play, in ensuring the situation is corrected and reversed in order to save the education system and restore dignity to the learning process of the country.

Alphonso Toweh

Has been in the profession for over twenty years. He has worked for many international media outlets including: West Africa Magazine, Africa Week Magazine, African Observer and did occasional reporting for CNN, BBC World Service, Sunday Times, NPR, Radio Deutchewells, Radio Netherlands. He is the current correspondent for Reuters

He holds first MA with honors in International Relations and a candidate for second master in International Peace studies and Conflict Resolution from the University of Liberia.

Read the original article on New Republic.

Liberia: Is MOE Genuinely Executing Its Core Functions?

Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters

Success!

Error!

Error!