The prolonged civil war in Liberia over the years has disrupted the process for a generation of youth, and caused a low net enrollment of students in Liberian school.

Since the launch of UNICEF, back to school programs some years back and the pronouncement of free and compulsory education by the UP government, there has been some level of improvement in the enrollment process.

The MDGs report 2008 has enshrined that the gross enrolment of primary education stands at 86.3 % for the year 2007 which is much encouraging as compare to 200 to 2002 school year raging to 56.2%. Nevertheless, the report also indicates that there has been considerable improvement in the enrolment process since the launch of free and compulsory education.

The free and compulsory education however has its own side effect which needs to be concentrated upon by the government: too many children in the classrooms. The over-crowdedness of public schools and even the University of Liberia  are all drowning in the sea of denseness.

“The over-crowdedness of public schools is an age-old phenomena and the inheritance of the Madame Sirleaf’s Government,” Mr. Abraham Nyounway, Secretary General of the Teachers’ Association of Monrovia consolidated School System and registrar of Newport Jr. High School revealed.

Despite the compactness of schools, many students are seen every day roaming the streets selling for their parents as bread winners, while some said that they are selling to complete the payment of their school fees before returning to school.

However, Mr. Nyounway blamed the denseness on the unavailability of structures to contain the number of students.

To date, students opting to attend private schools can be turned down by many public schools due to space problem. This causes some parents to have to choose to send their kids to private school – which is too exorbitant – or leave them alone without school. This is also contributing to the roaming of school aged children on the streets.

Some years ago, some 64 countries converged to Dakar, Senegal in an effort to improve learning standards in their respective countries. At the conference, a specific target was reached in a consensus that each country’s representative should encourage a free and compulsory education back home; that by 2015 every citizen in that country must at least complete primary school. This same target has been set by the MDG 2008 report, “ensuring that by 2015 children everywhere boys and girls alike, will be able  to  complete a full course of primary education.”

Even so, the 2008 MDGs report indicates that Liberia is far from achieving the goal of providing the level of school enrolment agreed on: this is not an encouraging sign. According to the report the level of enrolment to meet the target is actually deteriorating. “Based on current trends, the net primary enrolment ratio will be approximately 40% by 2015. Hence, it is likely that Liberia will achieve the MDGs of 100% net primary enrolment by 2015. Similarly, while the gross enrolment rate is impressive, it must be placed in the proper context,”  MDG’s report states.

The realities of these statistics are being felt by the people of Liberia.

“I hardly find food for my children to eat; sending them to school is a problem. I can’t even get money to give them for recess so it is better for them to be with me and help me sell to met our daily supply of food,” Rebecca Garley, Chicken Soup Factory.

Many parents and teachers agreed that school feeding would be necessary to encourage some poor parents to enroll their kids to school where they will not bother them enough for breakfast.

The executive Director of LETCOM, an educational advocacy organization that was organized following the end of the Dakar conference to make education a priority or a human right issue said the monitoring, evaluation and compulsory aspect of educational performance to promote and sustain the quality of educational system is very poor.

Photography by Myles Estey.