The current students’ enrollment for academic school year 2024-2025 at the Louisiana Standard Primary School in the Township of Louisiana, Montserrado County, is experiencing a huge decline in students’ attendance.
This come barely few months to closure of the academic calendar year.
The previous impressive enrollment of school-going kids at the beginning of the year indicates that approximately 315 students got enrolled, but the number is drastically reducing below 200 students from September to May.
Students backsliding from attending school is attributed to the absence of some volunteer teachers, mainly those unemployed and also the lack of school feeding programs on campus.
These factors lead to the lapses of students’ reluctance; while the disparity of students’ enrollment and absenteeism is piercingly on a gradual increase by the day in the community school’s system.
The situation of ending the school feeding program is considered a setback to the school following the unpredicted shutting down of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID’s) sponsored humanitarian aid in the country.
A disclosure made by the school’s authority in consultation with the District Education Officer (DEO) to the InProfile Daily newspaper revealed that 50 percent of the instructional staff is not on the government payroll.
Seven of 13 teachers expected to work at the school are long-time volunteers working to augment the learning capacity of students, but are not fully operational while the other five are employed by the Ministry of Education (MOE.)
The school’s Principal, G. Willie Barrian, has supervised the administration of the institution for the past three years,
According to Mr. Barrian, names and academic credentials of the seven volunteer teachers were submitted to the Education Ministry for vetting with only one name successfully selected for MoE’s payroll.
He said the ‘unaccepted’ teachers have contributed immensely to the students’ learning process, “but their unemployment has created a big gap for constant irregularities for the teaching staff.”
“We are trying our best to talk to the volunteer teachers as a leader; at times, I get into the class-rooms to teach. But these days, those ‘rejected’ teachers only come when they feel like. They are feeling discourage to teach, because they are not on government payroll. As we speak, their commitment is not like before even though we are still encouraging them.”
Furthermore, the DEO, Bill N. Gaye, maintains that the closure of USAID has triggered the deficiency of volunteer teachers, and the fading of school feeding activities on campuses.
The two important things are key issues affecting students’ enrollment, and beyond all public schools covered by aid agencies.
Gaye said, the issue of the volunteer teachers is paramount to the MoE, and therefore, all hands are on desk to ensure the matter is dealt with adequately.
Rising Academy is one of the partners involved with subsidizing stipend for volunteer teachers, but the NGO has scaled down on its activities.
“I immediately engaged my bosses on the school feeding activities in the district; I was informed that plans are underway to mitigate the problem. But the major concern for now is the employment of volunteer teachers to bridge the gap between the unemployment and employment of the volunteers.”
Mr. Gaye said he met the School Feeding Director regarding the campus food preparation, and was told that the ministry is working out modalities with new partnership in the interest of students across the country.
The situation has compelled the principal of the school to fill in the gap to teach in vacant classes when the volunteer teachers are not available.
Responding in an interview about the Government of Liberia (GoL) School Feeding Program, Barrian spoke of how the school feeding activities was actively on-going until the school’s administration was informed by donors to cease the food preparation on campus.
The nutritional food packages were supplied to the institution by Mercy Corps, which is one of USAID’s partner NGOs whose implementation of donation from the American people abruptly closed.
“The children used to be here on campus throughout the time, but since they stopped cooking, I realized that most of the students are not coming like before,” Mr. Barrian observed.
The preparation of food on various campuses as mentioned was substantial to keep kids in school, most especially those in rural communities, who do not have the kind of opportunity of taking lunch to school and carrying money to buy whatever food they want to eat during recess period.
Students’ attendance came under sharp reduction when the entire school feeding activities got stagnated, according to both the teachers and parents.
Since the abolition of USAID’s work globally, Mercy Corps instructed the school’s administration early this year to halt the campus’ food preparation until consultations with the MoE in three months. Since then, the cooking operations on the school campus have not resumed.
“We visited our storage today and found out that the bugs are already eating up the beans and other foodstuffs,” Mr. Barrian said.
The school was absolutely tuition-free until the MoE Public Relations announced the payment of L$1000 for each student, a yearly fee. In spite of the publication, the authority of the school called PTA’s meeting and informed parents and guardians about the policy issued.
Mr. Barrian said some students have backed-off since the pronouncement was made and refused to pay the little fees, and it could amount to another factor responsible for students to stay away from school.
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