REACHING THE MIDDLE INCOME COUNTRY GOAL:THE HUMAN CAPACITY ISSUES

The Governance Commission, In collaboration with the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE), held a Policy Dialogue and launch of its study on “Reaching the Middle Income Country Goal: The Human Capacity Issues”. The dialogue was held at the Bella Casa Hotel and Suites on 8 April 2015.
Vice President of ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) and former Planning & Economic Affairs Minister, Dr. Togar McIntosh, moderated the panellist discussions. The panellists included Dr. Emmett Dennis, President of the University of Liberia; Neto Zarzar Lighe, Minister of Labour; Dr. Marcus Slawon, Chairman of the National Commission on Higher Education; Anthony Nimely, Deputy Minister of Education; and Julia Duncan-Cassell, Minister of Gender and Development.

Numerous international reports, over the recent years, have put Liberia among the five most under-developed countries in the world. To counter these analyses, and assure economic empowerment of its people, Liberia, through the Governance Commission and collaborating partners, initiated a study to determine factors responsible for the present state of affairs in the country and strategies needed to fulfil government’s efforts at reaching its middle income country goal.

The study recently launched named several factors responsible for Liberia’s current state of underdevelopment, key among them is the weak and under-funded education sector which the report zoomed in on. The study also named some education related issues as major contributing factors that are capable of equally posing challenges to Liberia’s efforts at reaching the middle income goal:
1. Poor/weak education system;
2. Limited access to quality education in leeward counties;
3. Lack of mechanisms needed to produce a trained workforce;
4. Minimal percentage of “Education graduates”.
5. Policymakers reluctant to address gaps in education sector;
6. Tertiary education needs to be well-structured.

Therefore achieving Liberia’s national vision 2030 - “Reaching the Middle Income Country Goal: The Human Capacity Issues” is more of a dream than reality if nothing is significantly done to reverse the present education and economic quagmire.

The National Vision 2030 and the Agenda for Transformation served as the backdrop against which the study on the human resource implications of Liberia’s middle income vision was initiated. The theme running throughout Liberia’s Agenda for Transformation is “education must play a crucial role in the creation of Liberia’s new workforce if the country is to achieve its desired goal of a middle income nation by 2030”, a view that is re-enforced by UNESCO’s post-2015 paper which states that “Education should not be understood as one development goal among many, but as the paramount goal”.

In opening remarks, Commissioner Othello Gongar, head of the Governance Commission’s Monitoring, Evaluation, Research & Publications (MERP) Mandate Area noted that the study on human resource implications for Liberia’s middle income aspirations, the Policy Dialogue, the National Vision 2030, and the Agenda for Transformation all stress the fundamental role that education plays in the transformation and development process. Dr. Gongar added that with regards to workforce requirements and access to education, the Liberian education system was found to be wanting as it had not yet put into place the necessary mechanisms to produce the workforce needed for a middle income nation.

For his part, Senator Dallas Gweh, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Education, agreed that education plays a critical role in the drive to achieving middle income country status but emphasized that access to education is even more important. Senator Gweh urged Government to go a step further in making education a national security issue. He assured of legislative support for budgetary request that will enable education play a catalyst role in propelling the middle income country goal.

Representative Matthew Zarzar heads the House Committee on Education. He spoke of the need for collaboration between the Executive and Legislative branches of Government, especially in ensuring that education gets the required funding for effectively impact of this national priority – “Liberia reaching its middle income country goal by 2030”.
Representative Zarzar warned that the Legislature could make adequate appropriations to the education sector but that the Executive Branch may choose not to use the funding appropriated in which case the Executive Branch could find itself in violation of Article 6 of the Liberian Constitution.

The Governance Commission desk study report on achieving the middle income country goal: the human capacity implications focused on three areas: workforce requirements, education sector needs, and gender imbalance in access to education.

MERP”s program Manager Matthew Kollie emphasized that the output of Liberia’s education system was not in sync with the requirements of an economy on the way to achieving middle income status. He said “the study found out that graduates in only three disciplines – sociology, management, and accountancy represented more than half of all graduates, those graduating in engineering were only 1% of all graduates, and that only 4% of all graduates majored in Agriculture, the nerve-centre of any developing country”.

The research also showed a continuous decline in the number of graduates in Agriculture over the years. According to the report, in 2011, graduates in Agriculture were 4.61% of all graduates, 2012 recorded 4.37%, and statistics now indicate that agriculture graduates are currently hovering around 4% of all graduates. Worse still, those graduating in Education accounted for only 3% of all graduates.

A critical issue noted in the report is “gender imbalance in access to education”. There is now a consensus among development specialists about the pivotal role women play in economic development. Yet in Liberia, women accounted for only a third of all graduates between 2009 and 2013.
A further breakdown of those graduating within that period indicated that women account for just 4% of engineering graduates, 11% of agriculture graduates and not a single female graduate in wood technology, physics, mining engineering, history and development studies. Women however accounted for 53% of science graduates because of the female bias towards the nursing profession. On the other hand, males accounted for 90% of all the graduates in civil engineering, electrical engineering, agronomy, geography, and political science.

The study indicates that policymakers did not prioritize these education gaps nor show any willingness to address them, as evidenced by their policy decisions. Foreign scholarships awarded by ministries, agencies and commissions (MACs) fell sharply from $888,834 in the 2009/10 budget to a mere $40,000 in the 2013/2014 budget, while the local scholarship budget for MACs dwindled from $991,955.00 in the 2009/10 budget to $266,280.00 in 2013/14. Of all the scholarships, 79% went to males and 21% to females, another indication of gender bias in access to education.

Panellists Presentation Highlight:
Deputy Education Minister Anthony Nimely noted Government’s “free education” policy as the culprit for the poor quality of education nationwide, adding “this policy contributed to creating sub-standard schools”. However, efforts are now being made to reverse and revive Liberia’s education sector through initiating new policies and activities focused on “ensuring quality education”.

University of Liberia President Dr. Emmet Dennis said though there is “light at the end of the tunnel”, it was taking too long to get there. He noted that a number of reforms have contributed to an increase in university enrolment since 2009, aimed at “uplifting, strengthening, and enhancing of the university’s learning process, its profile and credibility levels.”

Minister of Labour Neto Zarzar Lighe, Labor called for the speedy finalization of on-going efforts to conduct a comprehensive manpower survey to address the magnitude, components, and structure of the mismatch between human resource and demand in Liberia, after which tertiary institutions can then be called upon to deliver the necessary skills and knowledge for the job market.

Minister Lighe stressed the importance of adequately preparing the capacities of tertiary institutions to produce the required manpower to fill the gap, the effective partnership between concessions and the private sector in the human capital formation process, and additional technical and vocational education for high school goers and school drop-outs tailored to the needs of the economy.

For his part, Chairman of the National Commission on Higher Education, Dr. Michael Slawon stressed the need for an acceptable “student-faculty ratio” in higher education institutions in Liberia. He said the ratio in Liberia was well below the internationally accepted ratio. Dr. Slawon argued that for quality and sustainability, every effort should be made to improve this ratio considerably. He recommended that the Liberian higher education system should not be built from outside, particularly if Liberia is to achieve the vision of reaching the middle income status by 2030.

Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Julia Duncan-Cassell emphasized the need for sustained programs to address the gender imbalance in access to education. She recommended that policy makers and all other stakeholders should be constantly reminded of the imbalance in the participatory rates between boys and girls in the education system. According to Minister Duncan-Cassell, “women empowerment was an integral part of the development agenda and should be prioritized”. As part of the strategy to closing the gap, the Minister called for urgent action to deal with those social, cultural and traditional norms that have constrained the growth of girl’s education and employment. She disclosed that targeted interventions, including scholarships and girl-focus programs, were now underway to address the situation, and called for greater collaboration to assure success.

The Study came up with a number of recommendations to address Liberia reaching the middle income country goal by 2030. These include:
 That budgeting for the education sector be made judiciously, bearing in mind an imperative to take education to the people within the national decentralization scheme;
 That Liberia puts in place a proper primary and secondary school system, and that Science, Engineering and technology are factored into the planning process;
 Make the College of Science & Technology tuition-free for females;
 That the NCHE implement the Higher Education Strategic Plan;
 That the Ministry of Education commence an annual National Science Fair and a National Career-week;
 That scholarships be provided for female secondary school students desirous of becoming teachers or pursuing disciplines consistent with the workforce requirements;
 Academic and needs-based scholarships be given to young mothers, female school drop-outs, females with special needs, or females from low-income communities;
 Improve working conditions, salaries, and image of female educators, health professionals, and those working in agriculture, forestry and the industrial sectors.