The Minister of Education Prof D. Ansu Sonii says the ministry has added 852 teachers on its payroll to fill in the vacant spaces of teachers in the various counties.
Speaking in the Chambers of the Liberian Senate Tuesday, 23 March, Minister Sonii said there will be about three teachers to a school, though he admits that this number is not sufficient for the schools.
He explains that those teachers will be placed according to their various categories. Minister Sonii reveals that the 852 teachers will be added to fill in the gap for those schools that do not have teachers.
According to the Education Minister, there are funds already available to finance their payment. Speaking on the issue of retirement, Sonii also notes that it wasn’t noticed because it was done during the heat of the Coronavirus in the country.
He stresses that the teachers in the rural areas should help maintain the school. “If one zinc leaks, it spreads over to the ceiling and rolls down to the walls, that’s how the teachers and administration of the school sit there and allow the school to spoil. We all should help to build the country,” Minister Sonii says.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) boss says he has over three thousands schools under his control, noting that not a zinc that costs US$5 will make him to process an invoice to the Ministry of Finance.
He calls on teachers take care of the schools for the benefit of everyone, adding that the building of schools in the country have not been a problem but there are no teachers to take over those schools.
Minister Sonii adds that the ministry is working in the various counties and he has been to 13 counties to put in place the District Education Officer (DEO).
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According to him, they are making sure that the DEO of every county should be residing within in the county to be able to know the happening of the various schools.
Meanwhile, there have been complaints by some senators saying that in their various counties, the people there do not know their DEOs and CEOs.
It can be recalled that the Deputy Education Minister Latin Dathong appeared before the plenary of the Liberian Senate saying that the program which brought out taking teachers names from the payroll was done in the past government.
He explained that there was a test given to the teachers and those that failed were asked to be removed from the Ministry of Education’s list.
He also said that there was a grace period for those teachers that failed to equip themselves by going to school and achieving a degree, noting that some teachers challenged it and they were added to the list of qualified teachers.
By Ethel A Tweh–Edited by Winston W. Parley
