Who Are Yet To Be Placed On The Payroll, After Long Sacrifice
PHOTO: Madam Grace S. Yankae
By Moses M. Tokpah, mosesmtokpah@gmail.com
The issue of volunteer teachers in public schools in Liberia is not only unique to the rural parts of the country but areas just outside the capital, Monrovia, as many of them in rural Montserrado County are said to be not on the government’s payroll.
There are government-run schools even in Monrovia that have good number of their teachers who are still volunteering and struggling to be placed on the payroll. And one of such schools is the Peace Island Public School located in District # 10 close to the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Ministerial Complex in the Congo Town suburb.
It is being reported that the school currently has nineteen (19) volunteer teachers with a plea from one of the administrators of the institution to the Ministry of Education (MOE) to have those teachers place on government’s payroll.
The Vice Principal for Administration at the institution, Grace S. Yankae told www.newspublictrust.com recently that there is a need for the Ministry that is responsible for education in the country to help employ the 19 volunteer teachers.
According to her, the Peace Island Public school was a private institution but in 2022 the community decided to turn it over to the Government of Liberia after which the County Education Officer of Montserrado called her along with her other colleague to take over the school.
Madam Yankae explained that when they took over the school the entire teachers there were volunteers besides the administrators, but the government through the Ministry of Education intervened and about twenty-five (25) of the teachers were placed on government payroll while the remaining ones are still volunteering.
She disclosed that this is a school that has the enrollment of a little over one thousand five hundred students ranging from early childhood to senior high (grade twelve).
The female school administrator stated that it is difficult to run a school that has volunteer teachers especially in terms of taking decision against those volunteer teachers as an administrator on grounds that they are not taking pay.
“It is difficult to run a school with volunteer teachers, sometimes you want to come down hard on them but you will hold back because they are not taking pay; so I am asking the Ministry to help us get all of our teachers on payroll, when these teachers are on payroll that will help us to run the school,” Madam Yankae explained and pleaded with the Education Ministry.
Volunteer Teachers praised
At the same time, the Peace Island Public School’s Administrator has praised her teaching staff for the level of work they are doing though some of them are not on government’s payroll.
Despite of the huge numbers of volunteer teachers at the institution, Grace S. Yankae said their students performed very well during the first semester making specific emphasis on the 12th graders something she attributed to the teachers.
Commenting on the qualification of her teachers, the Peace Island Public School administrator revealed that all her teachers including those that are volunteering are all qualify as they all are BSc holders in education.
She has however, said she would like to see the school being the best in the entire district when it comes to education and as such, she has been on the back of her teachers insuring that they give the students the right materials (lessons) they need.