By Grace Q. Bryant
By Grace Q. Bryant
The House of Representatives has summoned Education Minister, Jarso Saygbe, to appear this Thursday, February 22, to provide a report on the current status of Free Compulsory Primary Education, and the impact of the Special and Inclusive Education for the visually impaired and the deaf society.
The plenary’s decision yesterday, February 20, was based on a communication from Representative Michael M. Thomas of Electoral District 4, Montserrado County.
Rep. Thomas’s communication read, “We wish to bring the attention of plenary to the long-lasting ineffectiveness of the Free and Compulsory Primary Education and the Special Education Policy instituted by the Government of Liberia across the educational sector of our country.”
Thomas’s communication maintained that the government’s policy on Free and Compulsory Education and Special education in Liberia, with its introduction in 2001 and reaffirmed in 2011, is an Educational Reform Act passed by the Liberian Legislature in 2011 to improve the country’s quality of education, to encourage school enrolment, reform the governance structure of the education system, and to fulfill the constitutional provision that obligates the government to develop the minds of Liberian children and people living with disability, through the Special Inclusive Education Division of the Ministry of Education; thus neglectfully leading the deaf and visually impaired into becoming mere street beggars.
“Unfortunately, policies and programs outlined by the Ministry of Education have heavily challenged our educational sector, with state actors labeling the sector as a mess with little or no improvement,” he stressed.
He furthered, “It will satiate your curiosity to note that, to a larger extent, the availability of education to every Liberian child, and people living with disability, will shape the minds of a huge portion of our future leaders in the right perspective and reduce the dangers posed by illiteracy to the basic equity in the social, moral, and political construct of our nation, Liberia.
We humbly pray the indulgence of plenary to kindly request the appearance of the Minister of Education to provide a report on the current status of the Free and Compulsory Primary Education and the impact of the Special and inclusive Education for the visually impaired and the deaf society, coupled with the vision and road map for the current administration in improving the educational sector of our country.”
