By Joseph Tumbey
The rising cost of private school fees and compulsory purchases of school materials on campuses in Liberia is pushing many families to enrol their children in public schools, causing public education facilities to become overwhelmed.
As more families struggle against high tuition costs, the Special Project Public School in Stephen Tolbert Estate on the Japan Freeway in Montserrado county has felt the effects directly. Principal Beatrice G. Hills confirmed that her school had to turn away students this year due to a lack of space. “We’ve used every available building, even those we previously kept in reserve,” she narrated. “All our chairs got occupied.
Some new students even brought their own chairs, but we still couldn’t accommodate everyone due to limited seating capacity,” Beatrice revealed.
The classroom situation is dire. Classrooms meant for 60-70 students were forced to accept 100-120 students this academic year. Principal Hills projects even higher enrolment for the upcoming school year, but has warned that the school will have to limit new admissions. “We must maintain manageable class sizes,” she noted.
Similarly, the situation at the William Gabriel Kpolleh Public School in New Georgia is alarming. With its enrolment number swelling from 873 students in the 2023-2024 academic year to an astonishing 1,665 for the concluding year (2024-2025), the school has been rocked by a 792-student increase.
Senior High Registrar, Peter G. Wrayou, expressed concerns about the inevitable staffing shortages arising from this situation, stating, “We currently rely on volunteer teachers to fill the gap, but they have threatened to leave if they are not added to the government payroll before the next academic year.”
The challenges families face are rooted in Liberia’s persistent poverty and unemployment problems.
According to the World Bank’s education sector analysis and poverty data, poverty contributes directly to low school enrolment and retention rates. The report indicates that children from poorer and rural households are less likely to complete basic education compared to their urban and wealthier peers, economic hardship forces families to choose between competing survival priorities. Compounding these challenges is the government’s failure to enforce its own education policies.
The Ministry of Education (MoE), tasked with overseeing the education sector, has faced widespread criticism for its inability to uphold regulations designed to lessen the financial strain on families.
In August 2019, the MoE issued a directive halting the mandatory purchase of school uniforms and other materials on school campuses. This policy was reiterated in an October 2021 statement, voicing warnings against compulsory purchases and arbitrary fee hikes.
However, this investigation has discovered that many private and faith-based institutions blatantly disregard these regulations. Schools operated by various religious organizations such as the Catholic archdiocese, the Muslim Congress, the Methodist Church, and the Seventh-day Adventist Church continue to demand that parents purchase uniforms and other school materials, adding to the financial burden many families face.
For instance, at St. Michael and Cathedral Catholic Schools, a set of uniform consisting of a jumper/trouser, blouse/shirt, and bow/tie for 12th graders is sold for US$55 or LR$11,000, a figure that parents believe may rise in the coming year. Students in kindergarten to 3rd grade pay US$30 or LR$6,000, while pupils from 4th to 11th grade are charged US$45 or LR$9,000. Additionally, parents are forced to purchase further items like jackets, extra shirts, physical education outfits, and socks, which compound their expenses.
At the Muslim Congress School, parents are compelled to buy uniform cloth for US$20. They then take it to the tailor and pay extra to have them sewn, and the school also charges for tracksuits and physical education materials. Likewise, the College of West Africa, operated by the Methodist Church, sells uniforms for US$25 for students in grades 10 to 12. The Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) School also places a significant financial burden on parents, who can spend close to US$100 annually per child on school-related uniforms.
Martha Kollie, a single mother with three children at St. Michael Catholic School, asserted.
“There is no difference from the materials sold in the market and the ones we spend plenty money for to buy on campus,” she stated. Martha feels that the additional expenses reduce her ability to provide for her family. Rose Mulbah, a university graduate struggling to finance her daughter’s education at the College of West Africa, criticized the government for exacerbating the challenges parents face when seeking quality education. “Our government only knows to make policies, but implementation is a big problem,” she revealed.
Similarly, Moses Wesseh, a civil servant making less than $170 United States dollars monthly, expressed concern over the financial burden on families. “Schools carry almost all the money we work for,” he lamented. Wesseh is urging President Joseph Boakai to pay greater attention to the education sector and relieve parents of unnecessary expenses.
Amadu Sheriff, a commercial driver, voiced frustration over the compulsory purchases, asking why schools insist that parents buy items from them. “In Liberia, people do anything they feel like doing,” he said. “School owners are all turning to something else as a result of our government weakness,” he lamented.
On the other hand, many school authorities echo the concerns of parents, frustrated by the government’s apparent neglect of public education.
Kabba Trawally, Principal of Muslim Congress School, disclosed that his institution often incurs losses, because as a faith-based institution, denying underprivileged children access to education is against their mission, “just last school year, we lost 1.2 million Liberian dollars to unpaid fees.” According to Mr. Trawally, for the incoming school year, there will be a little increment in their tuition to enable the institution pay its staff “the Ministry of Education wants to control the private schools but does not want to provide any subsidies.”
He revealed that like many other private and faith-based schools, not a single teacher from the Muslim Congress is on the government’s payroll.
Samuel D. Kamara, Principal of Greater Love International Christian Academy in Paynesville concurred with Principal Trawally’s assertion, adding that private school authorities introduced the compulsory on campus purchases due to financial pressure and lack of support from the government.
However, Kamara said “the Ministry often makes pronouncements without enforcement. So, nothing changes,” acknowledging that without stronger monitoring from the MoE, compliance will continue to be a challenge. Parents nationwide are demanding that the Ministry of Education rigorously investigate and penalize schools violating policies designed to lighten families’ financial burdens. Continued government inaction threatens to deepen educational inequalities and widen the gap between wealthy and poor households.
But Frank Mulbah, a Public Sector Management student at Cuttington University believes that to address this concern, the government must boost public education infrastructure and staffing to accommodate the rising number of students transitioning from private to public institutions, “public schools need more classrooms, trained teachers, and the materials necessary to create a conducive learning environment.”
Without these improvements, Mulbah predicts that the high demand and overloaded classrooms will not only hinder students’ learning but also diminish the overall quality of education in Liberia. Up to the time of this publication, all attempts to obtain comments from the Ministry of Education were unsuccessful, as calls and messages to the Communication Director, Mr. J. Maxime Bleetahn, went unanswered.
