GANTA, Nimba – The Ministry of Education has completed rewriting the national curriculum for grades 1-12 in Ganta. Professionals from the Ministry of Education, Nimba County Community College, and other institutions spent two weeks carrying on the exercise, which was supported by the Swedish government and the United Nations Population Fund.

Mardea Herring-Mensah, the director for Excellence Curriculum Development and Textbooks Research at the Ministry of Education, said the added portion of the curriculum will be used by both public and private schools for instructional purposes. She explained to reporters the areas of the curriculum that had been added and why was it necessary.

“We have completed the rewriting of the curriculum syllabus that will be used in both public and private schools under the reformed national curriculum development,” she said. “We have integrated sexuality education, peacebuilding, general history on Africa, along with other emerging issues. This [syllabus] is based on skills development, rather than content development.”

Herring-Mensah said the current curriculum that is being used in Liberian schools has “out-lived its lifespan” since it was last revised in 2011. She said the curriculum now needed new ingredients that will add value to the learning environment of Liberian students.

“Instead of going back to a content-based [curriculum] that didn’t derive skills, we decided to go to a competency-based [curriculum], that no matter, whether students drop out of school, they will have skills to move on in life,” she added.

The curriculum director pointed out that the implementation of this rewritten curriculum would be considered a “pilot phase,” to allow the ministry to identify the existing problems within the school system nationwide: “Once that is done—we [will] monitor the entire process; we will go back to the drawing board before the curriculum is disbursed in the entire 15 counties of the country.”

The added focus on sex education, according to Herring-Mensah, stems from the fact that many Liberian girls drop out of school as a result of getting impregnated by their male counterparts.  According to the United Nations Population Fund, 59 percent of adolescent girls are mothers by the age of 19, when the vast majority of Liberian students are still in school.

Herring-Mensah also said the syllabus provides education on drug abuse, focusing on substances such as cocaine, alcohol, marijuana, and others.

Felicia Sackie Doe-Sumah, assistant minister for Basic and Secondary Education at the Ministry of Education, said the new curriculum will also enable students to learn effective communication skills.

“This curriculum is also inclusive—to make teachers to know that there are different types of learners,” she added. “So, we made the curriculum in the way that teachers will be able to know and touch everybody in the classroom.”

The key challenge the ministry will now face is ensuring that the curriculum can be taught by teachers. According to the country’s 2016 Education Sector Analysis, only half of teachers have the minimum qualifications needed to teach at the grade they are teaching. Given a persistent shortage of teachers, the ministry may not have the option to simply dismiss unqualified teachers.

Featured photo by Jefferson Krua