(task) allAfrica.com: Liberia: Two-Hour School in Lofa County - Students in Class 8-10am

All Africa

4 cover

Education, Recovery

> http://allafrica.com/stories/201506100717.html <http://allafrica.com/stories/201506100717.html>
>
> Liberia: Two-Hour School in Lofa County - Students in Class 8-10am
>
> By Mae Azango
> Children in Gorlu, Salayea District Lofa County, are only in school two hours a day, or not in school at all. The reason? Their teachers are either running behind their salaries, or volunteer teachers are trying to get their names on the government's payroll.
>
> Matthew Gahndolo, the school's principal laments, "The government of Liberia says, free and compulsory primary education, but what is the use when the children come to school by 8:00 a.m. and leave the class room after 10:00 a.m. to go on the farms, because their teachers are running behind salaries"
>
> The situation of teachers leaving the classrooms and running behind salaries, and lack of qualified teachers to teach the children in rural Liberia, is not only restricted to Lofa County, but nearly all of the fifteen counties in Liberia. With the situation becoming increasingly alarming and dreadful, the government has also witnessed aggrieved health workers also on the streets demanding the Ebola risk benefits as well.
>
> It was also discovered in Rivercess County two years ago, that the educational system was crippled, because District Educational Officers (DEO) and Teachers were leaving the classrooms to run behind their salaries in Monrovia, hence leaving the students with little or no education. "Due to the slow-payment scheme, students in Rivercess are only able to cover 35 percent of the 100 percent full curriculum for the school system, which is bad, but what can we do?" says Matthew Swaray, DEO responsible for monitoring schools in the district.
>
> Rivercess County Junior Senator Dallas Gueh, at the same time highlighted that teachers were complaining that the country's pay team only stayed few hours paying some teachers, and then leaving a long line of angry teachers who must then chase their salaries all the way to Monrovia.
>
> Gueh says the government will have to decentralize the payment of teachers because teachers are leaving the classroom to run behind their salaries and causing harm to students. Then we sit and say the future is for the young people, when we are not preparing them for the future," says Gueh. The same problem has now resurfaced in Gorlu, Lofa County. Since the reopening of schools in March in the aftermath of the Ebola epidemic, teachers have completely abandoned the classrooms in both the Elementary and secondary schools, chasing after their salaries.
>
> Gueh explains: "Whenever you see students leaving school early, it means teachers are gone to Voinjama for their pay and when they go, they do not come back the same day, but remain there for about a week or two." Gueh says because the banking system tells some of the teachers that they do not have money in their account, teachers take it upon themselves to travel to the Ministry of Education central office in Monrovia to settle their payment problems."
>
> At the same time, children who are supposed to be in the classrooms learning are seen playing ball on the field near the Junior High school, because the school building was locked and teachers had gone in search of their salaries. A FrontPageAfrica reporter who visited the area recently noticed that the problem of teachers spending portion of their salaries as transportation as was the case in Rivercess a few years ago, is also happening in Lofa where some teachers are will borrow money to transport themselves in pursuit of their salaries, but by the time they receive the money, nothing will be left.
>
> Mr. Gahndolo, disclosed that teachers who make L$7,000 as salary have to use L$2,000 from their proposed salaries as transportation to get their salaries from Voinjama; similarly, those who have to go to Monrovia for theirs, spent about L$4,000 as transportation to get L$7,000 salary. Mr. Gahndolo recalled a situation last Thursday when many of his teachers went to Monrovia to run after their pay because Voinjama could not solve their problem. "When they go to Monrovia, they are there for another two weeks, so we do not know when they will come and the children won't be learning anything."
>
> Mr. Gahndolo says the checking system is preferable to the banking system in Lofa. "Because the pay team used to go to their district headquarters and pay them in checks and they would give their checks to one person to take to Voinjama, and en-cash them and return their money to them."
>
> "Even though we used to give a little token to the man who used to en-cash checks, we used to get our money without taking so much from it for transportation," Gahndolo says as he appealed to the Ministry of Education to change the paying system. "Instead of Ecobank, the government should take our paying system back to central bank of Liberia. This is the only way the children will learn. Because by the time pay time comes, we are worried that our teachers will be out of the classrooms running behind salaries."
>
> The Gorlu Elementary public school, built by Plan Liberia, runs from kindergarten to sixth grade. But a visitor to the campus recently found that the school of 521 students only had eight teachers. Due to this problem, the children are clustered together in a class, when the Ministry of Education standard number of students to a class is fifty.
>
> Gahndolo says the first grade class alone has about 100 students and it is very hard for one person to teach over 100 students. "But what can we do when no teacher wants to come up country and teach, with the way the salary situation is going." FrontPageAfrica has been unable to get a response from the Ministry of Education.The ministry's controller Mr. Augustine Josiah who is said to be responsible for subsidies and teacher salaries has not been available for comment.