Government Of Liberia To License Teachers This Year
Liberia’s regulatory body for Education says, in mid-2023, teachers will be evaluated and licensed before molding the minds of the future generation.
The Ministry of Education substantiated, that they are rolling out mechanisms to ensure, that a Licensing Regime is set up, for teachers.
Talking to Kukatonon News, Deputy Education Minister, Amb. Latim Dathong noted that by mid-2023, the government will embark on the licensing process.
“All professional teachers in this country will be licensed. Just as a lawyer walks around with his license to administer his profession, just as doctors in Liberia have a license; teachers will be licensed. If you are not a licensed teacher, you cannot go to the classroom. Going to school and learning education is not enough to make you a teacher. You should be licensed; there are exams you will pass every year, to maintain your license. So we are working on licensing of teachers in this country”; Amb. Da-Thong averred.
Educators Licensure provides the professional and public assurance that teachers have met national teaching standards and have demonstrated their readiness to teach and improve student learning.
Additionally, Teachers have welcomed the initiative but, request that government do more to improve their livelihood.
“Licensing teachers in the classroom is important because it plays, a key role as I said from the initial stage and it has to mitigate what we refer to as unqualified teachers from the classroom. But I will advise that not only they give the license but let the government make sure that it follows that with the actual salary, the actual benefit”, recommends Joseph Zinnah, Teacher of Barnes Foundation School in Lakpazee.
For his part, Teacher Kelvin George said, he has for a long time anticipated such by the government. “These are things that we have long been awaiting. For me, I believe in let’s do something legit. Now, if the government decides to give every classroom teacher a License, that will permit them to be able to teach the classroom properly, I think this is something they are going to pass through the rightful channel, by validating them and critiquing them to know whether the identical teacher, is up to the task. So I am seeing it to be a very good and nice thing the government is trying to do”.
Similarly, the Minister then iterated that the process benefits the country in that it serves as a caveat for teachers to guide their deportment to maintain their license.
“So if a teacher abuses a girl, or if a teacher takes money from the students, we will revoke your license, and you will never be able to teach in this country again, that is the direction Liberia is going now, He stressed.
There are glaring data that it’s an uphill battle to get fully qualified teachers in each of the teaching categories. Let’s look at the available data in the Early Childhood Education (ECE for short) category:
According to the UNESCO and World Bank publication, Education Sector Analysis 2022, “Liberia has one of the highest Early Childhood Education (ECE) enrolment rates in the region; however, it is driven by the high proportion of overaged children observed in pre-primary classrooms, which has knock-on effects for the rest of the education system”.
It further states, “Available data shows that there is an undersupply of ECE teachers with an average pupil/teacher ratio of one teacher per 37 learners. Moreover, there is a lack of ECE-specific training opportunities for teachers in Liberia.
Thus far, only 174 teachers have benefited from the newly introduced ECE C certificate. As such, there are practically no teachers who are specifically qualified to teach at the ECE level. Only 35 percent of teachers have a C certificate, which is the minimum requirement to teach in primary schools”.
