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School monitoring is a challenge-Education Minister Sonii

By Kruah Thompson

The Minister of Education, Professor D. Ansu Sonii, concedes here that school monitoring has actually been a major challenge for the ministry.

However, he says the challenge is not only with his ministry but cuts across all government ministries in the country.

Addressing the Ministry of Information’s weekly press briefing Thursday, April 14, 2022, Minister Sonii explained: “Many times people speak of monitoring and supervision. It cuts across the whole government, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Youth and Sports and all other ministries in the country, the monitoring aspects of our work has been a challenge.” 

He discloses that to strengthen the supervisory side of the ministry, government has purchased brand new vehicles with a lifespan of not less than 12 years each, to be distributed among assistant ministers and County Education Officers (CEO) for effective monitoring and supervision of educational activities in their various places of assignment.

These vehicles, the Minister says will enable them to supervise educational activities at their various places of assignment, which will help ease the work that they do.

He adds that because of challenges in the education sector, the ministry has redistributed all 15 counties among assistant ministers and they will pair with county education officers (CEOs) to control all other activities in rural areas. 

Minister Sonii notes that with this kind of supervision in place, information gathered from the field will be different, “and things will work out just fine.”

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“With this kind of supervision, the ministry will know the necessary steps to take when these things happen.”

He maintains that assistant ministers working in line with county education officers, that alone will give some level of transparency to information coming from the field, adding “This time, the proper actions will be taken to address the situation of schools that keep violating MOE guidelines.”

He stresses that the only step needed to make this happen is to build the capacity of all 124 district education offices, adding that the ministry has already built the capacity of 30 CEOs with 94 still waiting to be capacitated.

“We can get something for 30 of them, but we still have more number that needs to be capacitated because moving between the counties is tough.”

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education reveals that over 60,000 school-going children across Liberia are out of school due to lack of secondary schools in their respective communities, cities, towns, and villages.

Minister Sonii says the lack of secondary schools in several parts of Liberia has caused many children to be involved with riding commercial motorbikes and Tricycles, serving as breadwinners for their families.

However, he says despite current economic challenges, government through the Ministry of Education is about to employ 200 female counselors to provide counseling in government-run high schools across the country. 

He adds that the female counselors will provide basic social counseling for female students from 14 years upwards to increase the number of females in school and graduating from high school. Editing by Jonathan Browne 

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The New Dawn is Liberia’s Truly Independent Newspaper Published by Searchlight Communications Inc. Established on November 16, 2009, with its first hard copy publication on January 22, 2010. The office is located on UN Drive in Monrovia Liberia. The New Dawn is bilingual (both English & French).
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