HELP LIBERIA FOUNDATION

Help Liberia Foundation is Concerned

Posted by Help Liberia Foundation on September 16, 2007

Help Liberian Foundation’s attention has been drawn to persistent reports that school authorities in Liberia are constantly increasing school fees, a situation that is unbearable for both students and parents.

After fourteen years of wars that have rendered majority of our people needy, any sharp increase in the cost of education will not only suffer our people, but it will also adversely affect the educational programs of the nation. In the face of conspicuous high unemployment, high illiteracy and abject poverty, it’s incomprehensible that school authorities would decide to hike school fees, instead of initiating programs that would ensure high enrollment across the country. Isn’t there a need to get as many kids as possible into schools?

Student Gloria of Help Liberia Foundation School holding her graduation present after the July 29 graduation ceremony; most of the kids around her are not in school

While we are cognizant of the fact that the increment could be a result of hard-to-deal-with conditions facing some schools, it could also be arbitrariness on the part of some school authorities. Already, some schools are contending that the increment is engendered by government’s decision to forbid them to collect some special items such as toilet tissue, reams of paper, cakes of soap, etc., from the students, when the same government is not in the position to subsidize their budget. Perhaps the situation is more complicated than seen on the surface. Hence, something has to be done about it.

That’s why Help Liberia Foundation joins the Liberian National Student Union (LINSU) in calling on the Liberian government to speedily address the situation. Just as LINSU rightly indicated in it’s position statement on Monday, 10 September 2007, Help Liberia Foundation believes that the increment in school fees poses a serious threat to the plan to get as many students as possible into schools, especially children of the have-nots, who make up the bulk of the society. The increment, for sure, poses additional burden on our people, and this must not be allowed to go on. An unemployed society cannot afford to pay exorbitant school fees.

The government must investigate why there are increments, and must put in place the appropriate policies and strategies to revise this troubling and problem-prone development. Liberia cannot afford to have most of its school-age children out of the classroom. Actions much be taken, and taken now.