REFLECTIONS ON EDUCATION IN LIBERIA:

THE CHALLENGES OF SYSTEMIC REFORM AND THE

“PARTNERSHIP SCHOOLS FOR LIBERIA” PILOT
DAVID ARCHER, ACTIONAID – 6th December 2016
david.archer@actionaid.org

1. Summary
There are some major challenges in access, quality and equity in the Liberian education system. A
new Education Sector Plan outlines some credible ideas for systemic reform and many of these ideas
deserve coordinated support from development partners. However, the process of developing the
plan has not been as transparent and inclusive as it should have been and there are serious gaps in
the projected financing of education which make renewed engagement with the Ministry of Finance
essential.

Most worrying of all is the disproportionate focus on and investment in the “Partnership Schools for
Liberia” pilot programme. This controversial pilot operates through 8 different private providers in
94 schools and is designed in such a distorted way as to make it impossible to scale up across the
system. There is a significant investment in a Randomised Control Trial Evaluation which
unfortunately is unlikely to be able to yield any meaningful insights beyond the simple truth that if
you spend a lot more money and limit class sizes, children will do better. Human and financial
resources could be better used to achieve systemic reforms that could benefit all Liberian children.

2. Background to my visit
My visit to Liberia at the end of November 2016 coincided with some key meetings where the
Education Sector Development Committee was asked to endorse the national Education Sector Plan
(called “Getting to Best”). I was able to meet the Minister of Education George Werner, the Minister
for Gender, the Coalition for Transparency and Accountability in Education (COTAE), the National
Teachers Union (NTAL), the NGO Forum for Education (led by Ibis) as well as interacting with key
people from the major donors – the EU, World Bank, USAID, UNICEF and others - and also with wider
civil society groups including LETCOM at the national launch of the Private Profit Public Loss report
of the Global Campaign for Education. I also joined two sessions of the Education Sector
Development Committee meeting. Unfortunately a scheduled meeting with the Partnership Schools
for Liberia team and some of the pilot providers and evaluators was cancelled at short notice
without any clear reason being provided.

I was also able to spend one day visiting rural communities supported by ActionAid four hours
outside Monrovia - to understand how they perceive the education challenges. Finally I was able to
celebrate with rural women farmers the astonishing achievement of the Kilimanjaro mobilisation. I
was hugely aided by some valuable reflections on personal and political history by ActionAid
colleagues Korto Williams and Lakshmi Moore. In a short space of time I was able to hear some very
diverse perspectives and these consolidated reflections draw on everything that I heard and read.
 3. On the Process of the Education Sector Plan
A number of concerns were expressed by both development partners, donors and civil society about
the process involved in finalising “Getting to Best”. Some of the key documents were not available to
everyone in a timely fashion (such as the Independent Appraisal led by GPE, the Minister’s response
to that, the specific GPE proposal document and the final version of the plan) and yet a rapid
endorsement was sought of a complex 250 page document. It was not clear whether previous
feedback from the NGO Forum and others was seriously considered as no response was given (e.g.
on mother tongue teaching or on the risks of creating a parallel “Education Delivery Unit”). In the
Education Sector Development Committee meeting itself the was a long list of Ministers and
directors speaking but almost no space for discussion – and when space was eventually opened up
all the Ministers had left.

The lack of a fully participatory process is a particular concern in the context of a government that
faces an election next year. Unless there is genuine and full ownership of the Education Sector Plan
across society and with in-country donors and indeed within the legislature – the senate and house
and parliamentary committees - then it is difficult to see it being delivered. There does not seem to
have been any clear risk analysis in this regard. Whilst there are very positive elements in the plan
there are also some areas that are highly controversial such as the inclusion of the Partnership
Schools for Liberia (PSL) pilot. A consensus on the role of PSL has not been reached - and indeed
tensions are running very high – which undermines the potential for collaborative work to deliver on
the other elements of the plan. The Education Sector Plan is something of crucial importance to
Liberian citizens and a more extended consultation process and deeper dialogue would be highly
desirable if wide national ownership of the plan is to be achieved.

4. On Domestic Financing of Education

The Education Sector Plan does not include adequate commitments of domestic financing and it is
not clear whether the status of the financing projections are formally approved / endorsed by the
Ministry of Finance. There are several areas of concern in this regard:

 At present 13.5% of the national budget is spent on education and this is predicted to
rise only to 15% and then fall again to 14.5% in the following years - all of which falls far
short of the widely recognised benchmark of 20%. It will be difficult to persuade the
Global Partnership for Education to provide the provisionally allocated support of $11
million to Liberia based on this as there is a clear GPE requirement that countries
showing that domestic financing is consistently increasing towards 20%.
 The other widely used indicator on domestic financing is the % of GDP spent on
education. This is presently 4.1% and is then predicted to fall consistently in the coming
years to 3.3%. There is no clear explanation given and even though there may be a clear
rationale in the post-Ebola crisis this is not spelt out and again this does not appear to
show a clear domestic financing commitment to the education sector.
 Spending on primary education is predicted to remain static at 40% of the education
budget (short of the 45% or 50% often recommended) and spending on secondary
education is predicted to decline from 9% to 8% - whilst spending on higher education
will rise (from 29% to 32%). This does not show a commitment to increasing equity in
education – as equitable spending involves more investment in basic education. Again
no clear rationale is provided.
 No information is provided about what the government is doing in relation to increasing
the domestic tax base / tax to GDP ratios in the coming years. This is particularly crucial
 for education as the sustainability of financing for education ultimately depends on
building a predictable domestic source of funding rather than relying on short term and
unpredictable aid. Some analysis of the wider financing context, by the Ministry of
Finance and Revenue Authority would significantly strengthen the plan. Indeed, in the
context of elections next year it is particularly important to secure some more binding
financing commitments, clearly embedded in official national budget documents and in
the Medium Term Expenditure Framework.

5. Under-resourcing of some good programmes and some gaps

There are many good ideas and proposed programmes in the Education Sector Plan but it is not clear
whether these will be adequately resourced. For example there are programmes in Getting to Best
that include:

 Reaching out of school children (an urgent priority given 18% of primary age children in
Liberia remain out of school – though it is worth noting that not enough attention is paid
to this given the scale of the challenge),
 Addressing the crisis of over-age children (the majority of children are not in the grade
they should be for their age) - through alternative education.
 Improving workforce conditions for teachers and increasing the proportion of qualified
and trained teachers.
 Developing new syllabuses for English and Maths with teacher guides and clearer
assessments.
 Implementing the national policy on girls’ education and countering school-related
gender based violence.
 Developing a national qualification framework for agriculture and other TVET skills.
 Establishing school quality standards and a system of school improvement grants.
 Supporting leadership development for school Principals.
 Improving the capacity of district and county education offices to deepen school
accountability and strengthening school inspectorates.
 Strengthening education management information systems and monitoring.
 Mainstreaming gender equality and health.
 Improving early childhood education through better teacher development and
certification.

All of these programmes are significant attempts at systemic reform, looking to improve education
for all Liberian children and all of these programmes deserve support. However, the level of
investment in many of these seems insufficient to achieve the ambitious goals. The vast majority of
the education budget goes on the payroll (which is understandable – nothing is more important than
paying teachers – though it would help if they were always paid in a timely way and didn’t have to
absent themselves from school to hunt for their pay!). There appears to be relatively limited funding
for some of the programmes above and only one programme seems to be fully resourced and
seriously prioritised by the Ministry and that is the Partnership Schools for Liberia programme that
helps just 3% of schools and does not hold out much prospect of contributing to systemic reform
now or at any time in the future (as explored below).
There are also some gaps in the education sector plan. There is no attempt to address the crucial
issue of mother tongue education – despite the compelling evidence on how crucial mother tongue
learning is for early literacy and learning amongst the most marginalised groups. The plan also fails
to address the biggest challenge in early childhood education which is that fees of about $40 per
child are now charged for nursery, K1 and K2 (ages 3 to 5) making it very difficult for the poorest
parents to enrol their children. This risks exacerbating low or overage enrolment in primary as some
parents see their children turned away from the first year of primary if they have not completed K1
and K2. There is a serious systemic problem here, which women in rural communities articulate very
powerfully - but it seems those voices have not been heard in the development of the sector plan
and this leaves a glaring gap.

6. The Partnership Schools for Liberia (PSL) programme

6.1 Background to the Pilot Programme

The most controversial area of the Education Sector Plan is the public private partnership of the
“Partnership Schools for Liberia” (PSL) pilot programme. The main concerns centre on the
concentration of very significant resources and political energy on a pilot involving just 94 public
schools (about 3% of public schools - that are not evenly spread across the country). The same
funds could make a significant difference to some of the urgently needed systemic reform
programmes flagged above that would benefit all Liberian schools.

Of course there is scope for governments to pilot innovative work but any pilot needs very careful
design to ensure it is replicable or scalable. It is a serious problem for any pilot if the cost ratios are
so high – and realistically there is no prospect of fully scaling up from the 3% of pilot schools to the
other 97% of public schools. Indeed, under the present design the PSL pilot is not able to generate
credible learning to inform system-wide improvement in future. Rather it becomes a largely self-
contained programme that represents favouritism to some schools and effective discrimination
against all other schools who will not receive a fair % of the government budget or attention.

There are eight different providers involved in PSL, which was opened up to others with the support
of ARK after an initial agreement with Bridge International Academies (BIA) sparked serious protests
early in 2016. The other providers are BRAC Liberia (20 schools), Omega (19 schools), Street Child
(12), Rising Academies (5), More than Me (6), Stella Maris (4), Liberian Youth Network (4) and -
though it is not clear whether all the agreements are the same as the very favourable MOU
agreement reached with BIA (reportedly providing $8 million – a substantial sum given the total
education budget is only $41 million). Despite requests the full MOUs of all providers have not yet
been shared so it is difficult to determine whether there is a level playing field – and certainly there
seem to be some preferential terms agreed with BIA.

6.2 Problems faced by the Evaluation

A lot of attention is being given to the Randomised Control Trial evaluation of PSL that will track
progress over the coming three years. However there are serious concerns over whether the
evaluation of PSL can be truly objective or generate any useful learning when PSL schools are
receiving significantly more funding than the government control schools against which they will be
compared. Indeed, the PSL schools not only have more money, but also smaller classes and more
political and managerial attention from the Ministry. They also appear by various means to have
selected the “best” students and teachers, effectively excluding others. These observations are
elaborated below and raise concerns about whether it is feasible for the RCT, however rigorous, to
isolate the added value that arises from the involvement of private providers. How will the
government of Liberia or anyone else learn anything, other than the already evident truth that if you
spend more money per student and have smaller class sizes you will get better results?
In terms of extra financing the 94 PSL schools have each been provided with $50 per student –
money that government schools do not receive. In the last round of GPE funding to Liberia it is
estimated that each school received about $3 or $4 per student. This is a massive cash injection and
it appears that the 24 Bridge schools in the pilot may be getting even more – at $80 per student. The
original BIA MOU involves the government providing $8 million to BIA to run 50 schools and it is not
clear that this amount has been reassessed based on them now running just 24 schools. The
Minister suggested that he wished he could ignore the BIA MOU and create a level playing field for
all of the 8 providers but it is not clear if he will succeed in this (especially given BIA’s proclivity for
taking legal action). Besides, a level playing field for the pilot schools is still a profoundly un-level
playing field for the 94 control schools.

The PSL schools have reportedly all been allowed to limit class sizes to 45 children per teacher – in
line with the preferred government policy. In practice many Liberian primary schools have much
larger class sizes, especially in the early grades - with 100 children not uncommon and stories of 150
children in a single rural classroom. Allowing the PSL providers to limit class sizes creates another
massive distortion compared to the “control” schools that will be used in the RCT evaluation.
Particular attention is needed to investigate how the PSL schools came to select 45 children per class
and what happened to those who could no longer fit. It is reported that selection was neutral -
based on a “first come first served” model - but there is inevitably an asymmetry in parents’ access
to information and those better connected and educated parents probably leapt first on the chance
to send their children to a special pilot school that would benefit from extra resources at no cost to
them. Certainly this seems to be what has happened. There are many stories now being collected of
children, often from more disadvantaged backgrounds, having been excluded owing to the cap that
was suddenly imposed on the pilot schools. Many of the children excluded were registered and
enrolled in the school in previous years and were suddenly told there is no longer a space for them.
This is shocking!

There is an urgent need to properly track what happened to children who were excluded as a result
of this class size cap being imposed. Initial reports suggest a range of things may have occurred.
Some will have gone to neighbouring public schools – which would see a sudden surge in class sizes
– and some of these may be the control schools used for the evaluation (creating additional
challenges for those schools). Where there is no nearby alternative public school some parents may
have faced difficult choices – perhaps sending boys to a fee-charging private schools and taking girls
out of school altogether – or registering them for traditional schools – which is the path to FGM in
Liberia. In a couple of cases it seems parents have built rough makeshift structures next to the
school to accommodate those children excluded from the pilot PSL schools. In some cases there
have been strong protests (e.g. in Bong, Margibi and Nimba countries) and even near riots - where
parents have protested because they built the public school with their own hands, got it recognised
by the government after a long struggle and then suddenly find the school handed to a private actor,
without consultation – and now see their own children excluded from the school they built with
their own hands. The Randomised Control Trial evaluation of the PSL must fully address this full
story. What happened to the excluded children? Even if enrolment in the classes of 45 in the PSL
schools is gender balanced it does not mean there was not a negative overall impact on girls’
education. Exclusionary practices are a clear violation of the right to education on the ground of
discrimination and go against the spirit of SDGs where the clear focus is on reaching the unreached
and including the excluded to ensure education for all.

6.3 Additional challenges with Bridge International Academies

There are some specific additional problems with the 24 BIA schools as BIA imposed special
conditions on which schools they would accept for pilots. For example BIA insisted all their pilot
schools should be on accessible roads and in clustered locations with electricity and good internet
connectivity. Such conditions are highly atypical as I can personally testify from a day’ drive through
the country observing school after school, in poor states of repair on barely navigable roads without
electricity and certainly lacking internet connectivity. BIA have also poured in extra resources
(including solar lighting through a deal with Akon and apparently providing 1 tablet per 3 children).
Some of these may even be additional investments over and above the cost ratio afforded by the
government MOU – as this is a pilot that is worth deficit financing for BIA if it pays off.

It also seems that BIA may have been more selective of children, teachers and principals than other
providers though it is difficult to get full information given their apparent reluctance to talk to
independent researchers or allow observers to visit their schools. It is suggested that all children
were given assessments at the start of term and if children did not meet the grade level they were in
they were regraded, put down a year or more. How will the RCT evaluation address this – comparing
the results of a child in year 3 in a BIA school (who may have actually been in school for 5 years)
next to children in a government school (who in grade 3 would only have been in school for 3 years).
There are also reports of a high degree of selectivity of teachers – with BIA removing those they do
not consider good enough (who are transferred to other public schools) and focussing on newly
trained teachers who will be compliant to their system – for example being willing to work longer
days - from 07.30 to 3.30pm - with no extra recompense. BIA have also reportedly removed some of
the principals and it seems many employees feel under continual stress, fearing losing their jobs at
any moment. There is some evidence also emerging, which need further investigation, that BIA are
charging parents some extra fees (e.g. for charging of the tablets or for new uniforms).

It is worth noting that BIA had a head start on other providers – having signed a deal early in the
year. Some other providers against whom BIA will be compared were not ready to be fully
operational in September when the school year started (and some seem not to have received funds
in advance and were not able to pre-finance). In a few cases it seems the PSL schools run by other
providers have still not fully started up under the pilot framework. This is another factor for the RCT
evaluation to try to address. In summary, if you select the best children (supposedly on first come
first served basis) and the best teachers (removing weaker ones) and principals, limit class sizes and
pour in extra resources you will get good results. How will the RCT evaluation factor this in and tell
the full story of all the children who were originally enrolled in the PSL schools (it would help for
example if the evaluation tracked all the children enrolled in the selected PSL schools in the previous
academic year - 2015/16). The fear is that BIA is using this Pilot programme as a way of testing a new
business model – not running low fee private schools like in Kenya and Uganda – but claiming
government funds to run schools. They are both getting a heavily subsidised foothold that helps
them claim an unfair share in a future market – and this distorted example will be used to help them
claim public sector subsidy from other governments across Africa. Ultimately BIA are in Liberia and
elsewhere in Africa to make a profit (they seek to be making $500million profit within ten years);
they are not a charitable enterprise – and so it seems questionable to subsidise them with Liberian
tax-payers money.

Whilst paying attention to the particular issues around BIA it is important to track other providers as
well. BRAC, who started in Bangladesh running non-formal schools on a large scale, are reportedly
interested in starting to charge fees for some of their schools and could rapidly become a major
actor in providing low-fee private schools. Omega, who started in Ghana, are co-owned by the
controversial UK academic James Tooley and are likely to attract a lot of attention. Despite their
claims of extending access to excluded children, recent research in Ghana showed that over 99% of
the children in their schools were previously enrolled in government schools. It is likely that both
BRAC and Omega will put significant additional resources into their pilot schools in Liberia as the
stakes are high and they will be very keen to prove their success.

6.4 Additional problems for the evaluation

Another concern for the RCT evaluation concerns the indicators that they will use. It seems highly
likely that they will use fairly predictable variations on the EGRA / EGMA (Early Grade Reading /
Maths Assessments) tests to measure literacy and numeracy and these results will be given special
prominence. The government control schools are unlikely to be familiar with these formats /
assessments but they will be very well known to and indeed anticipated by BIA, Omega and some
other providers – who will have a strong incentive to teach to the test. It is not clear whether the
RCT will look at the full breadth of the Liberian education curriculum – which could be a further
distortion as government schools are required to teach across the full curriculum. The curriculum
taught in BIA schools in particular remains fairly secretive – as far as we know no independent body
has tracked what they are teaching through the downloads to their tablets and how this matches
with the curriculum.

One of the additional concerns relates to the level of political and managerial support PSL receives.
The Minister and even the President have staked their reputations on this and a lot of Ministerial
and senior management time is dedicated to making this pilot work. All that is time and energy that
is not spent on the wider challenge of systemic reform and the ambitious programmes needed to
deliver on the full Education Sector Plan. A new Education Delivery Unit (EDU)is being planned
within the Ministry as part of the Education Sector Plan and it appears that this may be largely paid
for by PSL (to be verified). Even if the EDU is not mostly funded by PSL there are still concerns that
EDU staff and consultants will be under pressure to focus most of their energy on the 94 PSL schools
– the Minster’s favourite project and what he sees as his personal legacy - rather than the 3,000
other public primary and secondary schools across the country (or indeed regulating / overseeing
the 2,000 other private / NGO / faith-based schools).

6.5 Scale up and funding

It appears that a review meeting for PSL is planned in February and a scale up of PSL is anticipated
in April 2017 even though the first year evaluation will not be available until September 2017. This
undermines the suggestion that the scale up of PSL will be based on evidence or learning. The plan is
to start implementing expansion in September – potentially a useful pre-election initiative for the
ruling party given that national elections are due in October. But if there is scale up then this will
mean diverting even further resources away from other public schools.

It may be argued that PSL attracts new earmarked funding – as some of the funding comes from
private foundations – including UBS Proximus, Jasmine, Vitol and Molago – and that therefore this is
all additional funding, a net gain for Liberia. However all the time and energy spent by the Minister
to fundraise for this special project is time and energy that is not spent on mobilising resources for
the wider public education system. There are opportunities to fully harness significant funds from
other donors that are being overlooked or deprioritised (e.g. for programmes to support out of
school children). The Minister is a persuasive man who could be very successful in raising funds for
wider systemic reforms if he focused his energy on that.

7. Next steps
It is worrying that the Ministry has pushed through a quick endorsement of the Education Sector
Plan despite many serious concerns that were raised by the Education Sector Development
Committee about the last version of the plan. It is not clear whether the Ministry plans to address
these but it is clear that it would be a mistake not to do so – not least because the GPE proposal that
will derive from this sector plan is unlikely to be approved without significant changes being made.
These concerns (from in-country development partners, NGOs and teacher unions), include many of
the issues outlined above: about the transparency and inclusiveness of the process, the credibility of
domestic financing commitments, the value of a parallel Education Delivery Unit within the Ministry
and the decision to give so much priority to a poorly design pilot programme that benefits just 3% of
public schools (with no prospect for significant scale up). It is difficult to see how the plan can be
delivered in practice unless major revisions are made, including the removal of the controversial PSL
pilot and significant new efforts being made to get more binding domestic financing commitments.
There also needs to be a renewed commitment to a fully transparent and inclusive national process,
in line with GPE guidelines, if a proposal to GPE funding in 2017 is to be successful.

In the coming weeks and months there is an urgent need for civil society organisations in Liberia to
gather independent data about the PSL pilot and collate evidence from the field in a systematic
way. There are already many anecdotes, photos, interviews with parents and teachers and
observations from field visits – collected by different actors including COTAE and NTAL. This material
needs to be catalogued, synthesised and analysed so that it can be presented in a coherent form and
so that it can guide continuing observation and study.

It would also be good to do some detailed qualitative research on a selection of the PSL schools –in
order to get a full picture of the impact of the pilot. This should include tracking all the students who
were enrolled before (from the 2015/16 enrolment) and comparing the socio-economic background
between those accepted under the newly imposed cap on class size numbers and those excluded by
the process- and collecting details of what subsequently happened to those who were excluded. To
the extent possible there should be comprehensive data reviews and in depth interviews with
principals, teachers, parents, children, community leaders etc. so that the whole story of a sample of
pilot schools can be brought to life. Requests will need to be made to the Ministry, the providers and
the RCT evaluators to allow unfettered access - as we know in the past BIA have been reluctant to
allow independent researchers to study their schools. Whilst BIA may be the focus for qualitative
research it will be important to look at other providers also –particularly BRAC and Omega who are
the second and third largest actors in the pilot.

There should be a strong civil society mobilisation when the PSL pilot is reviewed in February 2017,
when the scale-up discussions occur in April and when any new scale up is operationalised in
September. This should include sharing consolidated alternative evidence and making the case for
alternative ways in which the significant resources dedicated to PSL could be better used for
systemic reform. The PSL programme could even become an election issue for October – with the
teacher unions and others already discussing a strategy to seek clear commitments to public
education in all major party manifestos. Some legal challenges might also be explored – about
consistency with national procurement law in the issuing of the original contract to BIA – or in the
use of public funds in ways that consciously benefit a minority and thus discriminate against the
majority.

One area that would be worth vigorous advocacy is with the key foundations and funders – to
make the case that 50% of their funds should be earmarked for the government control schools – to
create a more level playing field. It will never be perfect given this would start a year late – but not
doing this makes any evaluation, however well-designed, of little value . Ideally of course, all the
funders should be asked to support the systemic reform plans in the Education Sector Plan – rather
than investing in what increasingly seems to be an ideologically-driven vanity project that will
struggle to continue after a change of government at the end of next year.
It will also be important to follow up directly with the team involved in the Randomised Control
Trial evaluation of PSL (Justin Sandefur and IPA - plus Pauline Rose who is involved in the oversight
of the evaluation) to discuss all the issues raised above and explore how they can factor in as many
of the concerns raised as possible.

8. Final Reflections
There is an urgent need for serious reforms to the public education system of Liberia. There are
some good plans being developed which, if properly resourced, could make a real difference. The
PSL pilot is becoming a toxic distraction – undermining the relationships needed for a genuinely
collaborative effort between the government, civil society and development partners. The
challenges ahead are considerable and we need every one to work together for systemic education
reform that will benefit all Liberian citizens.

Your feedback and comments on this report are welcomed. Please send to
david.archer@actionaid.org
Twitter: @DavidArcherAA