Education: the Best Road to a Better Liberia

The Perspective
Atlanta, Georgia
February 3, 2022

Cllr. Tiawan Saye Gongloe

Mr. Principal and members of the School Administration
Members of the Faculty
Members of the Graduating Class
Officials of Government
Parents
Other Distinguished ladies and gentlemen

Before proceeding any further, may I ask every here to stand up for one minute of silence in memory of the over thirty Liberians that died a few days ago, while running away from criminals during a crusade at the D. Twe High School, in New Kru Town, Montserrado County. Thank you and you may have your seats.

On this occasion, I have chosen to speak on the topic: Education the Best road to a better Liberia. Education is learning about anything that you do not know or improving your knowledge about something that you already. Therefore, education makes a person know what he or she did not know before. A person who does not know about a particular thing is considered to be ignorant about that particular thing. In this regard, the purpose of education is to get rid of ignorance. There is no other way in life to get rid of ignorance, except to get educated.

In order to get educated, one must go to a formal school, through a well-organized academic program that starts from pre-school to kindergarten, elementary school, Junior high school, High School, and university to obtain a degree or technical or vocational training to get a certificate. Yet there is another form of learning that comes, mostly, in the family, with children learning skills from their parents and relatives. A boy, for example, may learn from his father or uncle who is a blacksmith or woodcarver by helping his father or uncle every day. This is referred to as learning by apprenticeship or by experience.

Whatever form of education a person gets, it is important to note that it is better to learn, than not to learn at all. Learning is the only irreversible path to a better life. When you learn to be a doctor, teacher, lawyer, nurse, secretary, accountant, carpenter, mechanic, and IT specialist or get any other skill, the knowledge acquired stays with you forever until you die. It can neither be taken away by anyone, forgotten, nor lost. Take a boy who inherits one million United States Dollars from his late father who was a carpenter, but did not learn anything from his father, and his brother who did not inherit any money from his late father, but learned carpentry from him and inherited all his tools and think about which one is a show of a better life forever. Obviously, the boy who learned carpentry from his late father will be sure of living a better life than his brother who inherited one million dollars from their father. The brother who inherited the one million dollars could invest it and become richer, but he could also lavish the money thinking he will never get broke or could invest it in a business that may not be profitable and in the end become poor. In the case of the brother, he may not become a millionaire, but he will always use his knowledge as a carpenter to live a better life forever. Knowledge is better than money or any material thing because knowledge remains with its owner forever; but money or a material thing can be taken away from its owner, lost, or misused.

Everything a man or a woman wants to do or be in life must be learned and learned well. A person, who wants to be a big businessman, must begin first by learning to sell small items and excel in doing business based on experience. A person who wants to be a paramount chief is in a better position to become a good paramount chief if he begins with the position of town chief, or clan chief and learns how to lead people. In the area of education, for example, it is risky to appoint someone as a school principal who has not been a classroom teacher. Our current President of Liberia, for example, started playing football in his community, and then he played football in his school and then played in the local football clubs and the national football team of Liberia before he moved on to play international football,  beginning with Tonnerre Yaounde,  in Cameroon.  Yet our president allowed some greedy Liberians to convince him to take on the task of carrying a load that he had not learned to carry. They argued that because he had Liberia at heart, he could lead Liberia better than any politician. Today, the story has changed. It is clear that he cannot carry the load of leading Liberia. There is no way for a person to carry a load that he does not have the strength for. For instance, no matter how much a ten your old boy says he loves his father, it is child abuse for his father to give him a hundred-pound beg of rice to carry.

Preparation is the key to carrying any load. It is said that practice makes perfect. It is also said that reading makes a man and knowledge is power. Learning, either by reading or doing is the necessary step to success in life.

Today, all of you graduates are now prepared to take the next step in preparation for serving Liberia. Some of you may be fortunate to enter universities in Liberia or out of Liberia to become nurses, doctors, lawyers, accountants, pastors, etc. Yet some of you may decide to enter vocational and technical schools and become technicians. Whatever you decide to do after today, do not take your graduation from high school to be the end of learning. Today is the beginning of learning for a better life. This is why this program is called a commencement program. It is just the beginning. Prepare yourselves for a better Liberia, because there cannot be a better Liberia without educated citizens.

It is the responsibility of the government to educate its citizens. According to article 6 of the Constitution of Liberia, “The Republic shall, because of the vital role assigned to the individual citizen under this Constitution for the social, economic and political well-being of Liberia, provide equal access to educational opportunities and facilities for all citizens to the extent of available resources. Emphasis shall be placed on the mass education of the Liberian people and the elimination of illiteracy.” This means that government is under a constitutional obligation to make sure that all children of Liberia should have the chance to go to school and must have the same facilities.    The worst thing that is happening to Liberian children today is that the government is not building new elementary, junior high, and high schools in Monrovia, Paynesville, and other parts of Liberia. Yet, the populations of Monrovia and Paynesville have grown far beyond their pre-war populations. Today, there is no Ellen Mills Scarboro School, no Susan Berry School, and no Monrovia Central High School.

The government has not built new schools in Kakata other parts of Margibi County, and other parts of Liberia where the populations have grown beyond what they were before the Liberian civil conflict. During school hours, children are seen in the streets selling or playing in their communities or on the beaches when they should be in school. Government has to do better than it is doing in the area of education. In today’s world, all the countries that are making social and economic progress are countries that have invested in the education of their children. Countries like Ghana, Lesotho, and Botswana, amongst others are making progress economically and socially because of their investment in education. Even governments in the Mano River Union countries are doing better than the Liberian Government in spending on the education of their children. For example, in 2020 the Government of Sierra Leone, next door to Liberia, spent 34.4% on education; the Government of Guinea spent 12.3 percent on education, while the Government of Liberia spent just 2.3 % on education. This is disappointing, to say the least.

The Government of Liberia has to do better if Liberia must get out of poverty. Liberia will remain poor and underdeveloped if the government of Liberia does to pay special attention to the education of Liberian children. In fact, the Liberian Government is promoting ignorance by not building new schools and not re-opening the schools that have been closed, since the Liberian conflict. Ignorance is an enemy of national progress. The Late President William R. Tolbert of Liberia once said that the three enemies of Liberia were poverty, ignorance, and disease. He then concluded that the worst of the three enemies of Liberia was ignorance. That the conclusion made by President Tolbert remains true today. Government must change this situation by building more and better schools throughout Liberia.
While I am calling on the Government of Liberia to build more schools, I am aware that the CDC government is unable and has no intention to build more and better schools because of corruption. Most people at the top level of the Executive and Legislative Branches of the Liberian Government steal our money in order to build large private homes.  

The situation is such that the Republic of Liberia and a majority of the people of Liberia are getting poorer, while their government leaders are getting richer and paying very little attention to education. Therefore, Liberian children will increasingly remain illiterate and ignorant. It is no secret that the more ignorant people are the poorer they become. Given the current situation in Liberia, it is safe to conclude that the pro-poor agenda of the CDC Government is to make Liberians poorer than to free them from poverty. Today, the suffering in the country is just too much. While parents are becoming poorer and poorer every day, the government is allowing private schools to increase school fees because of little or no subsidy from the government to private schools.

Then there are other fees such as graduation fee, amongst others, when in fact the Minister of Education and many of us who went to school under other governments did not pay any fee called graduation fee, in order to graduate from high schools and universities. The hardship in this country has just become unbearable for most parents in this country. And instead of sitting in his office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in order to find ways to do something about it, President Weah spends his time at his Jamaica Resort studio producing one song after the other and competing with the young people of Liberia over trophies in playing sports. He has proven that he is an excellent entertainer and not an excellent head of government of a country that urgently needs recovery, reconstruction, and sustained social and economic development. The situation is very sad for our country.

The only way to change this very bad situation in Liberia, my people, is for the people of Liberia to vote CDC out of power in 2023.  

I thank you.