LIBERIA PRESIDENT ANNOUNCE CONSTRUCTION PLANS FOR 25 SCHOOL BUILDINGS

President of Liberia George Manneh Weah has noted that the country are making plans to construct 25 schools building for the country.

Speaking during the 5th Annual Message to the 54th Liberian Legislature sitting in its 5th Joint Session at the Capitol on Monday, January 24, 2022, President Weah disclosed ongoing renovation and rehabilitation of all 156 Public Senior Secondary Schools throughout the country simultaneously.

He noted that US$47 million grant received from the World Bank with a wide scope of interventions including new construction, rehabilitation, equipping, training, and textbooks development has greatly contributed to the huge push to fix, in the words of his predecessor, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the ‘mess’ in the Liberian educational system.

He further stated that under the IRISE Project and in partnership with the World Bank, government will construct three Model High School complexes in the first quarter of this year, now that design and procurement requirements have been completed, adding that each of the three institutions has been designed to accommodate about 1,500 senior high school students and that the program will be replicated in other school districts to provide a better learning environment for Liberian children.

President Weah reports that available statistics revealed total number of senior secondary schools in the country is 752, as of Academic 2020/2021, of which, he says government owns only 156.

“To reduce that gap”, he says “the IRISE Project shall fund the construction of 25 new Secondary Schools strategically situated in 25 school districts that are currently without secondary schools.”

Meanwhile, the President assures that under the 2022 National Budget, his government intends to increase spending in education so that current interventions can lead to transforming the sector from mess to best.

SOURCE: New Dawn