EDUCATION IN LIBERIA

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27274, 15 February 1954, Page 10

EDUCATION IN LIBERIA

ASSISTANCE FROM UNESCO ESTABLISHMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS PARIS. Thirty miles west of Monrovia, capital of the African republic of Liberia, lies the village of Klay, at the end of a two-hour jeep ride over dirt roads and through jungle fords. But Klay, though its population is reckoned only as “250 huts,” is the bapital of a Liberian district where an important development in education is taking place, says Daniel Behrman, writing in a UNESCO publication. In August 1952, the district’s first rural school was opened by an international team of educators from Liberia and UNESCO. Today, Klay is the heart of a network of 11 rural schools where education for better living stands as high on the curriculum as the three “Rs.”

Mr Bai Moore, Liberian co-director of the Klay experiment, recently told the story of a village mother, one of some 8000 persons who have received medical care at a small clinic opened in the village of Armima. “If I hadn’t taken Mandile to the clinic, she would have died,” said the mother. “One injection drove the witch out of her.” Mr Moore says education is as important as hypodermic needles in village health. Before trained doctors and nurses can bring any benefits, their prospective patients must be freed from centuries-old superstitions and taboos. This is the work of a joint LiberiaUNESCO plan to introduce modern methods of fundamental education—that is, education in the fundamentals of daily life and of better living—into Liberia’s bush villages. Hand in hand with the opening of new schools has come adult education at all levels. “Villagers’ Lives Transformed” The lives of the villagers, Mr Moore says, are being gradually transformed. The tiny town of Dagoebili decided it wanted a school and, to prove their sincerity, the residents built three miles of road so that educators could reach them. The school at Mono was opened by young David Sando, who did not even wait to be placed on a payroll before beginning to teach a class of 39. His school, like all others in the district, is in the village’s “kitchen”—that is. a large mud hut, open on two sides, under a thatched roof. Hundreds of farmers are learning new ways to increase production of their staple crops—palm products and coffee. Literacy classes are opening in villages, young mothers are learning child care, and the clinic is being accepted as a part of village life. The first of these rural schools in the Klay district opened in 1952 when the leaders of the village of Bonjatown were asked if they wanted a school. The answer was yes. They set aside a “kitchen,” and sand dredged from nearby streams was spread on its earthen floor. This school started its classes with 15 children. They ranged in age from seven to 13, but all were in the first grade, for none had ever studied before. “We knew' that this mixing of ages was against all the rules, but this was an emergency programme,” one member of the UNESCO team has commented. “We had to do it this or not at all.” It was an emergency. There were no pencils, no notebooks and no textbooks. Pupils learned to write on the sand floor, using sticks for pencils. At first, blackboards were improvised from window-blinds; later, teachers were provided with lumber and blackboard paint to build their own. Bonjatown was curious about this new institution, so much so that, in the beginning, the pupils’ mothers sat outside the open-air classroom all day long to offer encouragement. Some spanked their youngsters if they caught them whispering, others merely offered sticks to the teacher, who declined politely. Simple Curriculum

The curriculum at Bonjatown, now used in the entire district, consisted of reading, writing, simple arithmetic related to village problems, health education and agriculture. Reading and writing were taught in Gola, the local language, with the teachers using a Gola alphabet in Roman letters developed by Mr Moore.

The agriculture lessons are part of the agreements under which schools are opened in villages. Each village has allotted its school enough land to provide every pupil with a plot measuring 12ft by Bft. Under the direction of a UNESCO worker, children plant peppers (a local delicacy), tomatoes with seeds sent from Italy by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, and beans. The beanstalks are particularly important because meat has been a rarity in the Klay district ever since cattle were decimated by an outbreak of sleeping-sickness some 20 years ago. As a substitute source of protein, the beans are grown by children and taken home to their parents who can then see for themselves the advantage of learning about new sources for food—new ways of doing things. “The response may appear slow when compared with standard of living of people who enjoy a high level of

development,” says Mr Moore. “What is arresting, however, is that something is taking place in the lives of the people of the area.”