'Give us a year': high stakes in Liberia education reform

25 May 2016 - 12:50 By Zoom Dosso with Jennifer O'Mahony in Dakar

For the new school year, the Liberian government plans to roll out a public-private partnership involving 120 primary schools, costing an initial $65 million - the equivalent of more than three quarters of the entire education budget.In 2013, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf branded Liberia's education system "a mess" requiring a complete overhaul, after all 25,000 high school students sitting state university entrance exams failed.At the other end of the school age range, more than two thirds of children do not attend primary school, according to the UN.In addition, a 2013 school census report counted only 15,000 primary school teachers for an estimated 675,000 enrolled students aged 6-11.The pilot scheme, involving around a dozen education providers, notably the Bridge International Academies chain popular in Kenya and Uganda, will be extended to the entire primary sector if successful.The Bridge International method involves a teacher reading lessons from a tablet to classes of 50 or 60 with a heavy emphasis on rote learning.The same tablet is used to track class attendance and pupil performance -- hard to manage in a country where few have access to electricity, say critics.But Shannon May, the company's American co-founder, has seen its model catch on in many poor communities, beginning in Kenya and quickly spreading to Uganda and Nigeria."Give us one year. Not many people will take on that challenge. But we believe in Liberia. We're willing to be brave," May told AFP in a recent interview.She said Bridge International, backed by the likes of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft's Bill Gates, was ready to tackle the challenge."We're willing to take the risk and say 'we are going to make your teachers great'," Shannon said.However, Liberian teachers are close to mutiny, unwilling to be forced into the Bridge International mould."It will create more harm to our already suffering kids and parents," said Mary Mulbah, acting president of the National Teachers' Association of Liberia (NTAL)."Only two percent of the population has access to electricity. How will you bring an iPad to these kids who only study on candlelight?"The United Nations' Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Kishore Singh, has branded the plan "completely unacceptable".For teachers, the government's refusal to provide adequate funding for schools is to blame for the low level of education.NTAL secretary general Sam Johnson says the government has failed in terms of supervision and financial support.Most schools were inaccessible by road, and promised textbooks never arrived, according to Johnson.Teachers complain that even now they are often left without pay for long periods, while earnings can be as low as $200 a month.And Jonah Nyenpan of the United Civil Society for Educational Dialogue, a grouping of Liberian education NGOs, accused the government of passing the buck rather than dealing with the roots of the issue."The problems here are lack of government willingness to adequately fund schools," he said.Experts say that while poverty and government policy are both holding pupils back, the quality of teaching in Liberia also falls far short, making a private option that works -- however limited -- more attractive than a broken public system.Economist Justin Sandefur, of the Washington-based Center for Global Development, has studied the Bridge International model and others like it in several African nations."I'm cautiously optimistic that they could make significant improvements within a year," he told AFP, believing "the only way is up".Sandefur believes the most striking difference of the pilot was the introduction of managerial oversight in a sector that until now has been unable to discipline failing schools, teachers or pupils.While the pilot project will not alter the current employment conditions of teachers or create private contracts, they can be reassigned if they are found to be underperforming.Sheldon Yett, the UNICEF representative for Liberia, said a lack of teacher training and high level of absenteeism were hampering quality education."Children are not learning what they should be learning and not enough children who should be in school are in school," he told AFP, adding that it was vital that the government should maintain a large stake in the process...

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