More4Education Wants Increment In Education Budget

By Bill W. Cooper
The More4Education Coalition has called on the Liberian government to muster the political will to achieve minimum 20 percent budgetary allotment to the educational sector of the country, owing to the fact that it has committed itself to financing education.
Though the groups acknowledge the government for the educational sector one percent increment in the country’s national budget from 13.7 percent to 14.7 Percent in fiscal year 2018/2019 and 15.8 percent in fiscal year 2019/2020, they also noted that the government funding to education lags far behind regional neighbors like Sierra Leone, Ghana and Senegal according to a research conducted by COTAE in 2018.
Reading the joint press statement at CENTAL office in Sinkor, COTAE National Coordinator, Anderson D. Miamen, said that as a coalition, they have been involved in advocacy for more funding to education over the past 16 months, adding, “This has exposed us first hand to the anomalies in the sector.”
Mr. Anderson stressed that the country’s educational sector is faced with numerous challenges due to low financing, noting that these challenges range from lack of adequate learning facilities and supplies to shortage of teachers, inadequate training of teachers, and ineffective school monitoring and supervision.
“The Education Reform Law of 2011 has not been fully operationalized giving it the teeth to bite and ensuring that there are county structures,” he said. Anderson added that these many challenges continue to stand in the gap of quality and affordable education for all Liberians, owing to the fact that education-related matters have and are still being politicized and not treated as an emergency.
The COTAE National Coordinator further stated that the poor educational system has on the increase failed to help students realize their dreams and live their potentials to the fullest, as it is the time that all education stakeholders combine and increase efforts to inject life in the educational sector.
“The onus is also on government to meet the 20 percent benchmark for education, and this can only be done incrementally but a reduction must never be entertained and funding must be sourced from the lucrative amounts allocated to the executive, legislative, and judiciary branch of government,” Anderson alluded.
The groups through Anderson D. Miamen further called on partners, donors, well-meaning Liberians and re-emphasizing the need for alternative strategies to support education, as well as other non-traditional and innovative approaches should be explored to mobilize adequate resources for the education sector in the country.
The More4Education Coalition Partners is comprised of the Coalition for Transparency and Accountability in Education (COTAE), Youth Coalition for Education in Liberia (YOCEL), National Teachers Association of Liberia (NTAL), Inclusive Development Initiative (IDI), National PTA Association of Liberia (NAPTANOL), HOPE and UMovement funded by USAID LAVI.