Government has admitted that over 60, 000 children of school-going ages at public primary and secondary schools out of school due to the lack of structures in the various communities nationwide.
If there is empirical evidence to this report then, it contradicts the government’s own pronouncement when it claimed that tremendous progress has been made in the educational sector.
Education Minister Dao Ansu Sonii who headed the team that did the merry-go-round month-long tour of the nation made the disclosure when addressing the media recently in Monrovia. He stated, among many things, that what was mainly observed during their visits countrywide was the lack of sufficient structures to accommodate those who have completed junior high level.
Sonii said as a result, those who finished the junior high sections could not continue but were being driven to either motorbike riding or find themselves at various gold and diamond creeks mining for fortune.
He said the need to address such a fact is immediate because the country’s present population is dominated by young people who should be preparing themselves to take over.
The Minister noted that the situation of the figure mentioned is not limited to only the males but females as well which should therefore be taken more seriously than ever.
Sonii however announced that the government is employing for deployment 200 females as guidance counselors in the various public senior secondary schools countrywide.
Early this year, the government announced that it made the largest single investment mainly at senior secondary level since the 1970s to address the huge infrastructural deficit in the educational sector.
On Monday, January 24, President George Weah announced to the Legislature that an US$47 million grant from the World Bank has been infused for new construction, rehabilitation, equipping, training, and textbooks development to fix the ‘mess’ in the country’s educational sector.
He then went further that renovation of all 156 public senior secondary schools nationwide has begun simultaneously but as of June all renovation works would have been completed and dedication shall be planned in phases per county.
The President said that the government has made strides in improving literacy and other learning outcomes in the educational sector, with milestone achievements in the areas of Access, Quality and System Transformation.
He noted how the government under the IRISE Project and in partnership with the World Bank, will construct three Model (multilateral) High School complexes in the first quarter of this year.
“Design and procurement requirements have been completed with each of the three institutions being designed to accommodate about 1,500 senior high school students and that the program will be replicated in other school districts to provide a better learning environment for Liberian children,” the President said.