By S. Siapha Mulbah
The payment of the West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for 12th graders across the country has been one of the major financial obligations of the George Weah-led government since 2020.
As one of his campaign promises fulfilled, President Weah instituted the payment of the examination fees, which covered senior and junior high schools nationwide, all public and some private institutions.
Now that President Weah and his CDC-led administration are about to hand over power to a new administration, there are concerns in some quarters of the academic sphere as to whether Boakai and his Unity Party Alliance will continue Weah’s campaign promise of paying WASSCE fees, especially for deserving students.
The debate is whether or not, the WASSCE fees payment initiated by the outgoing President will continue or be terminated by the incoming government rages on, as some citizens argue that the initiative was a cardinal tool to support the Weah-led government’s Pro-poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD), but the implementers lacked the requisite knowledge and managerial skills for the full implementation for the project, thereby watering down its intended objective.
They said that the payment of the WASSCE and WAEC fees by the government was not timely for a country that has so many challenges, especially in its education sector.
On the other hand, some citizens, especially low-income earning parents, praised President Weah and his government for helping to educate their children through the payment of their WASSCE fees.
According to them, the intervention by the government gave them some financial relief as they focused their finances on other activities such as buying book, providing transportation, and lunch for their kids.
Following the pronouncement by the government to terminate the payment of all school-related fees, some critics of President Weah and his CDC government have described the immediate termination of the program as a failed political strategy from the regime that was full of schemes.
An intellectual on Carey Street, Leo A. George, explained that government should have focused its attention on working with schools and education actors by providing subventions and introducing programs that would have impacted the reduction of fees to an affordable amount for all parents.
He said tuition has skyrocketed to an extent that financially struggling parents are finding it difficult to send their kids to quality schools, before thinking of sending them to the public exam, which is less than 10 percent of the school fees.
“Canceling this entire WASSCE and WAEC fees payment by government will mean nothing to the country if the new government initiate programs that will focus on providing subsidy to the private and faith-based schools to cut down the high cost of tuition and other expenses that these institutions go through,” he said.
For his part, a youth activist studying at the University of Liberia, Augustine Zaimbo, disclosed that the new government is not under obligation to accede to the liabilities of paying examination fees now, because they have outlined priority areas for the country’s forward march.
As the Coalition of Democratic Change is yet to step out of office, Zaimbo asserts that there have been immense financial, educational, political, economic, and even social damages inflicted on the image of the country by the outgoing administration, and cancelation of WASSCE fees payment for the sake of revamping and improving the educational sector is the best any new government can think about when coming to power.
He explained, “What makes free WASSCE payment impactful is researching and understanding every sponsorship around it. It is costly and this government has to seek funding and improve on it without cutting the salaries of civil servants in the name of a purported harmonization.”
According to him, these fees were paid indirectly by parents through the unlawful salary deduction, which gave the government more profits than what they were actually spending, leaving a huge burden with parents.
“There was a situation that parents’ salaries were cut and they were underpaid by the regime; some parents did not have examination-writing children in public schools, so how did this benefit them? When the new government pays workers their just salaries and creates more jobs the same way they pay their kids’ tuitions, they will pay WASSCE and other fees,” he added.
But Mother Christiana Sayphan and others see it differently. According to Madam Sayphan, government is continuity, and she wants the Boakai administration to take the responsibility to continue the running of the free tuition and WASSCE fee payment policies.
She observed that the expectation for government to take State power with the speedy development of the livelihood of citizens is an expectation that should be managed.
Madam Sayphan explained that the country has a fragile economy and the payment of the examination fee has helped to alleviate some financial burdens from the shoulders of parents for more than three years.
“We can only appeal to the government that is about to take office to think in the direction of this program for the sake of the citizens and the country at large. If the payment does not continue, it will raise a bar for financial challenges and some of these things serve as a gap in the education sector,” she appealed.
Also, Jonathan Kayne of D. Tweh High School has added his voice to Madam Sayphan’s and others to call on President George Weah to rescind his decision and reinitiate the payment all WAEC related fees, noting, “I believe that President acted in good faith because this program is a great help to some of us who come from poor backgrounds. This is a legacy that I want the President to leave behind; something that we, the students, will remember him for.”
He encouraged the incoming Boakai-Koung government to give special attention to the payment of all WAEC-related fees, so as to reduce the financial pressure on struggling parents who are desiring to educate their children.
For his part, the Vice Principal for Student Affairs at the Susan Brooks Memorial AME School, Lormane Kollie, believes that obligating the incoming government to the fees payment is laudable, but wants the implementation to be more transparent, impartial, and credible, so as to achieve its intended objective.
According to the school administrator, the policy did not have any impact on private schools that was below high school criteria which made it hard for schools in the private sector to run the quality of educational program that could buttress government in educating the student populace of the country.
He called on the incoming administration to work with all schools in the country if they want to implement that strategy, so that an inclusive collaboration can be used to improve the educational sector.
He maintained, “We all have to work to have the country moving forward. Including private schools in the payment plan of fees, along with the government schools, will be the best thing to drive education to another level.
If there is no fund for that, the administration has to work tirelessly in creating job opportunities and have parents work to settle those costs and it should not be the case of the past.”
