TOW TOWN, River Cess – The River Cess head of the National Teachers Association of Liberia, Peter Gargar, says public school principals in his county may have to shut down for the 2024/2025 academic year due to the extremely dilapidated conditions of their facilities.
A recent tour by The Bush Chicken on various public school campuses in River Cess found those institutions in dire conditions.
Many students were seated on the floor during classes. A few classrooms had decaying chairs and desks with fallen parts and often limited numbers for the kids. At most schools, students were asked to bring their own seats from home while others would squeeze together on old desks.
Those unable to afford seats from home had to arrive in class earlier or sit on the floor.
The students are not the only ones feeling the pinch – teachers themselves have to improvise using old planks on bricks or old metal as tables.
At some of the schools, roofs were leaking.
At the Tow Town Public School in Timbo District, the situation is among the worst, with the school built with sticks and mud before plastering the walls with cement.
The 13-year-old building has rusty metal roofing sheets hanging on it, and the walls are falling off. One side of the building is roofless. There are just a few old armchairs for students.
Principal Genesis Wegelee said his school has been like this for about two years, but education stakeholders have long ignored it.
He told The Bush Chicken that the school’s Parents Teachers Association had planned to construct a new building, but “due to the hardship, the work is at a standstill.”
“We have called the government’s attention to this school, and we don’t know what to do again,” Wegelee said. “These are the schools they boast of having in the county, but they do nothing to improve the learning environment for the kids. Next year, we may not open if there is nothing done.”
Tow Town Public School’s current look: Photo by Eric Opa Doue
Peter Gargar, the River Cess head of the National Teachers Association of Liberia, is also the principal at the Gbediah Public School in Central River Cess Education District #1. His school faces the same problem.
“Apart from seats, this whole school is leaking,” said Gargar. “When it is raining, we can bring the kids in the corridor and even as that, when the rain intensifies, we will have to abort classes for that day because the whole building can be flooded.”
Gbediah Public School is about three kilometers from the Timbo Bridge that separates Grand Bassa and River Cess.
It is just a stone’s throw from the main road, which makes it very accessible, but Gargar said whenever there are supplies for the school, they are taken to Cestos, and his school will be asked to underwrite the cost of bringing the supplies back from Cestos.
He explained: “Two years ago, they brought some desks, but they were taken to Cestos, and our [district education officer] told us to pay L$2,000 (US$10) before we can get them. We paid the money, but [it’s been] two years now, and we are yet to get those desks.”
Peter Gargar, principal, Gbediah Public School in Central River Cess Education District #1: Photo: Eric Opa Doue.
Artcolston Dogbain, the district education officer in Central River Cess Education District #1, affirmed Gargar’s claim but argued that “the desks were not enough” to send them yet.
Gargar told The Bush Chicken he had received reports from most public school principals about the appalling conditions of their schools, demonstrating that his situation is not an anomaly.
He said if nothing is done to address some of the problems in these schools, principals will have no option but to shut down the schools for the 2024/2025 school year.
“They can’t have their children in the best of schools with the best of facilities and expect us to keep people’s children under the rain year in and year out in the name of teaching them,” he said, referring to national leaders who appropriate and distribute funding for the education sector.
In this same area is the Togar McIntosh School in Yarpleah Town. Unlike the Gbediah Public School, this school is being operated by a private company, Bridge Liberia, under a public-private partnership program known as the Liberia Education Advancement Program.
It was one of the first 26 schools given to Bridge in 2016. Schools under the LEAP program receive higher funding than regular public schools. However, Principal Samuel Yarpleah told The Bush Chicken that neither Bridge nor the government was meeting the terms of the agreement.
Yarpleah added, “See how the building is looking. There is no cement on the floor in the classrooms – we will have to sprinkle water in the classrooms to reduce the dust. The only things we get here from Bridge are those tablets they sent here for us to use for teaching.”
A classroom at Togar McIntosh-Bridge School System: Photo: Eric Opa Doue.
Under the agreement, Bridge is responsible for training teachers and providing teaching and learning materials. The government is responsible for maintaining the building, but since 2016, the building has remained lacking.
There are no doors, no concrete floors, and there are limited teaching and learning materials, Yarpleah noted.
Featured photo by Eric Opa Doue
