Uncertainty hangs over schools in Liberia

There are indications of glaring uncertainties that Liberian school authorities will allow the school system here to resume this year, as they weigh many options and plan to meet with stakeholders to derive a decision in the wake of the increasing coronavirus crisis which prompted the closure of schools this year.

In a phone interview with this writer Thursday evening, 7 May, Education Minister Prof. D. Ansu Sonii, emphasized that the Ministry has instructed that no student be invited for anything on the school campus, as it mandates schools to allow parents to take delivery of whatever belonging their children from campuses. Liberia’s coronavirus cases continue to increase, killing at least 20 persons out of 178 confirmed cases.

Minister Sonii says in the phone interview that the idea is to avoid congregating students on campuses, noting that most of the parents who have children on the campuses do not know each other, and therefore, will not have the time to congregate if they went to collect their children’s work on the campus, unlike the students.

Regarding whether to promote students or not, or whether the school system will resume this year, Minister Sonii carefully explains that this is a sensitive matter and it has to be looked at before a decision is reached which will be brought to the public by next week.

Prof. Sonii asserts that the children have already gone one semester, so authorities have to get to the public as quickly as possible, saying: “but that will be next week.”

He says they are first setting the foundation, and then they will have meetings with all the schools’ Parents, Teachers Associations (PTAs), Principals Association, following which they will let the president know about the outcome before the country and the students can be informed on what is decided.

“We will decide what happens,” he says, adding that there are too many things to consider, calling on the public to just be patient.

This paper requested the interview with Prof. Sonii in follow up to his earlier comment on a local radio station earlier on Thursday when he hinted that “the school system may not resume this year.”

According to him, measures including closure of schools were taken, thinking that the crisis would have lasted for a short time, but the school system may not resume this year as the spread of the virus is still going on.

Prof. Sonii had also cautioned that schools can’t promote students for the first semester they had attended, saying if they promote students to the next class; the schools should just know that all of them (students) will be demoted. In response to claims that some schools here are allowing students to congregate on campuses, Prof. Sonii explains that the Ministry of Education did not ask any school to invite students on their campus.

Instead, he says while the Ministry welcomes schools developing lessons so that their students can’t just sit down during the coronavirus crisis, it is however not to make students go on campuses, knowing that the students will congregate if they meet after a long time.

According to him, the idea was that if the parents go to market, banks, or in town for instance, they should be the ones to pick up anything from their children’s school campuses and carry it home for their children.

Prof. Sonii warns that “any school bringing students on campus, they are just rebellious,” as nobody would have even suggested that students should go on campus. He discloses that the Ministry has been working on a policy that is expected to be concluded this week.

This weekend Liberia is concluding another 14 days of lockdown after President George Manneh Weah extended the measure on 24 April because the initial 14 days which took effect on Saturday, 11 April had ended with more coronavirus cases being recorded.

The virus has spread to eight of Liberia’s 15 counties and continues to put more strains on the weak economy where the vast majority of the people live in poverty.