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National
examination decision unfair to students
Sunday,
June 17, 2007
By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh
It is no secret by
now that the educational system in Liberia in 2007 is
a national embarrassment. It was a disaster in 2006,
and also a disgrace in 2005. All in all, the
educational system in Liberia is not close to being
what it used to be before the civil war that destroyed
every known infrastructure in the country.
I wrote
about the dismal Liberian educational system and its
negative effects on our young people in 2006, when the
West African Examination Council, (WAEC) announced its
chilling results that out of the 14,978 twelve graders
that sat for the national examination that year, a
combined total of 5,514 students (boys and girls) did
not make it out of the 12th grade.
A breakdown
of the figures between the genders revealed that 3,439
male students failed, while 2,075 female students also
did not make it out of the senior class last year.
This did not
only happen to students at the historically terrible
and corrupt Wells Hairston High School, whose
ninety-three 12th graders did not pass, but
also affected the once respected Our Lady of Fatima
High School in Harper, whose entire 12th
grade class also failed the 2006 national examination.
The national
embarrassment did not awakened the Ministry of
Education and Minister Joseph Korto, whose mission in
2007 should have been about overhauling the entire
school system after such poor results, by
strengthening the curriculum and making the learning
environment student-friendly and easy for students to
learn; and not make it difficult for those students
who are already struggling to go through more hurdles
that discourages and impedes their progress.
With such an
important national examination looming at the time,
the Ministry of Education and Minister Joseph Korto
should have collaborated with the various schools in
setting up learning centers within the institutions
throughout the entire country to prepare the students
for the exam.
Had Minister
Korto shown leadership in this matter, he would have
extended his hands to civic and business leaders, the
transportation industry and the Ministry of Transport
to put forth a comprehensive discounted fare plan
intended to reduce the amount students have to pay to
go to and from school each day; work hard to provide
affordable books and other materials to help students
in need, since Liberia is still shredding itself from
the devastating effects of the civil war, and work
with others to decentralize the school system because
as it is now it seems the Ministry of Education is too
overwhelmed to singularly attend to the educational
needs of the entire country.
This effort
could have encouraged the students to learn, and gave
them the confidence needed to be ready for the test by
discouraging the nonsense we all know today as “borum,”
the so-called mysterious copies of the original test
students often buy on the black market used to prepare
them for the national examination, and also used to
spy when they are taking the actual national
examination.
However, the
only leadership Minister Korto has shown so far during
this crisis is to ordered in May the suspension or
cancellation of the 2007 national examination
administered annually to 6th, 9th,
and 12th, graders by the West African
Examination Council, because of alleged “fraud and
mal-practices,” and has since been rescheduled for
June 18-27.
Now that
those 17,000 high school students were chastised
collectively for “fraud and malpractices” with the
possibility of the entire school year going in the
drain, it is unknown whether the Liberian government
put in place a comprehensive plan to prepare the
students so that what occurred in the past with the
cancellation of the 2007 national examination will not
happen again, and whether the minister put together a
contingency plan intended to ease the transitional
period for students who did not return to retake the
national examination for personal reasons.
Because he
is a product of the Liberian school system, it is hard
to believe Joseph Korto is unaware of the hard times
students often encounter in a society that does not
put them first, but is rhetorical about what is
expected of the students who must constantly fight
their administrators and the Liberian government to be
given a chance and the opportunity to learn.
The obvious
lack of a place for some of the students to live, the
lack of food, money to pay tuition, bus fare, books
and qualified teachers can hinder the student’s
academic growth, can intimidate others barely making
the grades, which are enough reasons to discourage the
students and lead them to cheat.
Even as I write this column, University of Liberia
students who just had a reconciliation photo-op with
Pres. Sirleaf because of a recent national uproar
about the unbearable costs of college education, are
still unhappy about the high cost of tuition, while
the University of Liberia teacher's group are still
fuming over low salaries for professors and teachers,
yet Minister Korto is busy canceling national
examination, and is unable to be a voice to the
problems concerning quality education, pay increase
and the hike in college tuition.
So will the
cancellation or suspension of the national examination
help Mr. Korto’s ill-conceived crusade? Will it help
the students or hurt a broken system that needs
serious attention?
Kortu’s
ruling, which is bizarre and one-sided, certainly will
have far-reaching consequences on education and the
lives of students, and will hurt whatever "progress"
he has made during his tenure, because his action did
not deal directly with the root cause of the problem
but immediately jumped to a narrow conclusion by
exercising an authoritative decision that rubbed the
students of the opportunity and the option of taking
the national examination.
The
student’s option should have been to take the
national examination and fail it and don’t graduate,
or take the national examination and pass it and move
on.
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