Liberia has a unique connection to the United States. African Americans immigrating from the U.S. to the West African Coast officially founded the nation in 1847. While the country has struggled to achieve prosperity and economic stability for its citizens, the Liberian education system has made considerable recent progress.

Liberia is still recovering from the civil wars that began in 1980 and lasted until 2003. As a result, Liberia ranks near the bottom of the United Nations Development Program Human Development Index at 174^th out of 187. Correspondingly, nearly 36 percent of the Liberian population suffers from malnutrition.

During the years of civil car, educational systems were almost nonexistent. This leaves a massive gap in skilled workers entering the job market and by extension, extreme unemployment (close to 80 percent) and poverty. Liberia has a literacy rate of 60.8 percent, and an education system described as “a mess” by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Not all news about the Liberian education system is bleak, however. In 2011, President Sirleaf signed into law the Education Reform Act, which seeks to decentralize the education system and help create a new educational management structure more locally focused. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has also instituted the Liberia Teacher Training Program to help train, develop and recruit more teachers for the nation.

An additional component of USAID’s work in Liberia is encouraging participation in education by girls and women. The Girls’ Opportunities Access Learning Program hopes to increase school enrollment and retention for girls by identifying key policy issues with Liberia’s Ministry of Education.

According to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Corporal Organization’s Education for All Initiative, at least 15 percent of a nation’s budget should be allocated for education. Currently, Liberia only spends around 3 percent of its national budget on education.  In order to fully jumpstart educational progress in Liberia, there is much more to be done.

– Taylor Diamond

Sources: The Guardian, USAID, WFP, Liberian Education Trust
Photo: International Book Bank