A new report by Human Rights Watch has cast a harsh spotlight on the country's struggling education system, warning that mandatory registration fees in public schools are systematically excluding children from classrooms and financially suffocating parents who are struggling to keep their kids in school.
The new report exposes how hidden costs, weak foundational learning, and chronic underinvestment are pushing thousands of Liberian children out of school.
Released in Monrovia on Wednesday, the 75-page report, titled "Without Education, There Will Be Nothing: School Fees and Other Barriers to Education in Liberia", paints a troubling picture of an education system where poverty, overcrowded classrooms, weak foundational learning, and chronic underinvestment continue to undermine children's right to education despite constitutional and legal guarantees of free schooling.
The findings come amid growing concern from the government itself. Just weeks earlier, Liberia's Minister of Education, Jarso Maley Jallah, publicly acknowledged what she described as a "hidden crisis" in the sector -- one rooted not only in school access, but in the failure of many children to acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills in their earliest years of learning.
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Together, the report and the Minister's remarks reveal a far deeper structural challenge confronting Liberia's education sector: children are either unable to enter school because of costs, or are entering classrooms without the foundational support necessary to succeed.
Although the country's Education Reform Act guarantees free and compulsory education from grades 1 through 9, Human Rights Watch found that families across the country continue to pay mandatory registration fees and other school-related costs at virtually every level of public education.
The organization conducted research between November 2025 and January 2026 across Montserrado, Margibi, Bong, Nimba, and Grand Bassa counties, visiting 21 schools and interviewing nearly 180 people, including parents, teachers, school administrators, and students.
According to the report, fees range from LD$1,000 at the primary level to LD$3,500 for early childhood education, costs that many families living below the poverty line simply cannot afford.
"For many children, mandatory fees are not an abstract policy failure, but result in daily exclusion from education," the report stated.
Presenting the findings at the official launch, Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Advocacy Director Jo Becker described registration fees as one of the most significant barriers to education in Liberia.
"We found that school registration fees in Liberia's public schools violate national and international law," Becker said. "They harm Liberia's children. They deny them their right to education. And it also harms Liberia's development as a nation."
She revealed that many children begin school years late because their parents cannot afford registration costs.
"One mother told us her daughter did not start grade one until she was 12 years old and her son until he was 13," Becker explained. "She said they started late because 'I had no money."'
The report found that more than half of Liberia's primary school students are at least three years older than the official age for their grade, while over 60 percent of junior and senior secondary students are four or more years over age.
Education experts say over-age enrollment is closely linked to higher dropout rates, grade repetition, and long-term learning failure.
The findings reinforce longstanding concerns about Liberia's poor education indicators compared to both regional and global standards.
According to the report, roughly one-third of school-age children in Liberia have never attended school, while only 38 percent complete grade six and just 17 percent complete grade nine.
Those figures place Liberia among the lowest-performing education systems globally.
Globally, approximately 70 percent of children complete primary school, compared to Liberia's 38 percent completion rate. On average, a Liberian child entering school at age four is expected to complete only 4.2 years of schooling by age 18. The situation is even worse in rural Liberia, where nearly half of children have never attended school.
Human Rights Watch argues that the country's education challenges cannot be separated from wider socioeconomic realities. Nearly half of Liberia's population lives in poverty, forcing many families to choose between food and education.
"One mother told us, 'Whenever I get some small money, half goes to food and the other half goes to schooling,"' Becker recounted. Another parent said: "Even if I don't eat, I find a way to pay the fees."
The "Hidden Crisis" Beyond Enrollment
While the HRW report focuses heavily on access and affordability, Education Minister Jarso Maley Jallah has warned that Liberia faces another less visible but equally dangerous crisis: foundational learning failure.
Speaking during the National Week of the Young Child celebrations, Jallah described a system where many students advance through school without mastering basic reading and comprehension skills.
"At the point children reach first grade, many are already playing catch-up," she warned.
She recounted meeting a child who could neatly copy words from a blackboard but could not read what she had written.
"That is the issue of foundational learning," Jallah said. "It is not always visible, but it is there." Her remarks align closely with global concerns around what development experts call "learning poverty" -- children being physically present in school but failing to acquire essential skills.
The country's education reforms since the end of the civil war may have successfully expanded enrollment, but quality improvements have not kept pace, experts say.
Years of conflict, the Ebola epidemic, and the Covid-19 pandemic severely weakened the education system, leaving behind shortages of trained teachers, poor infrastructure, overcrowded classrooms, and limited instructional materials.
HRW documented classrooms with as many as 80 to 150 students, poor sanitation facilities, leaking roofs, and severe shortages of paid teachers. The organization also highlighted Liberia's heavy dependence on volunteer teachers, many of whom work for years without salary while waiting to be placed on the government payroll. In Nimba County alone, the county education officer reported over 1,200 volunteer teachers still working without pay.
Both the report and education analysts point to chronic underfunding as one of the central drivers of Liberia's education crisis.
The 2026 education budget accounts for only 11 percent of national spending and 2.73 percent of GDP -- well below the international benchmark of 15 to 20 percent of national budgets and 4 to 6 percent of GDP recommended for education investment. It also falls below the ECOWAS regional average of approximately 4 percent of GDP.
HRW criticized what it described as the government's failure to fully implement provisions of Liberia's own education law. Becker pointed specifically to the recent ArcelorMittal concession agreement, which included a US$200 million signature fee. Under the Education Reform Act, 60 percent of such concession signature fees should go toward education funding.
"According to the law, US$120 million should have gone to education," Becker said. "But only US$15 million was allocated."
The comparison with neighboring countries was particularly striking. Sierra Leone, which shares a similar profile as Liberia (post-war and post-Ebola challenges), now allocates approximately 20 percent of its national budget to education and has abolished school fees through secondary school.
Similarly, Zambia's elimination of school fees in 2021 reportedly brought 2.5 million children back into classrooms.
Government Reforms and Remaining Challenges
Despite the grim findings, the report acknowledged several ongoing government initiatives aimed at improving the sector.
Among them is the Excellence in Learning in Liberia (EXCEL) Project, an US$88.7 million initiative funded by the World Bank and the Global Partnership for Education. The project includes US$18.5 million in school grants intended to reduce or eliminate registration fees.
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Human Rights Watch estimates that completely replacing school registration fees with government grants would increase Liberia's education budget by only about four percent, making the reform financially achievable.
The Ministry of Education has also launched teacher payroll reforms, school feeding programs, and a national e-learning initiative aimed at improving access and quality. However, experts caution that without broader structural reforms, including teacher training, early childhood investment, and stronger community learning systems, the deeper learning crisis may persist
Minister Jallah herself acknowledged that teacher preparedness remains a major concern.
"We cannot call a child stupid because they learn differently," she said, emphasizing the need for teachers trained to support diverse learning needs.
Beyond human rights concerns, analysts say the education crisis poses long-term risks to Liberia's economic and social development. Research consistently links education to poverty reduction, economic growth, workforce productivity, and democratic stability.
Human Rights Watch noted that global studies attribute roughly 50 percent of economic growth and 40 percent of poverty reduction over the last four decades to investments in education.
"Liberia can't develop as a nation when it doesn't have an educated workforce," Becker emphasized.
The organization is urging the government to eliminate registration fees entirely, expand school grants, strengthen teacher recruitment and training, rehabilitate school infrastructure, and increase education financing in line with international benchmarks.
"Ensuring free, quality public education is one of the most effective investments the country can make," Becker said.
The growing consensus among advocates, policymakers, and international partners is becoming increasingly clear that the education crisis is no longer simply about getting children into classrooms--it is about ensuring they can stay, learn, and succeed once they are there.
