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LEAP Trainers Visit Monrovia to Support Local Teacher Trainers
Dr. Hamilton and I traveled to Liberia to demonstrate Friends of Liberia’s support for the teacher group calling themselves the LEAP Extension Team (LET) and to mediate on behalf of LEAP and LET with international aid organizations and the Ministry of Education.
The Ministry and UNICEF staff asked us to prepare a proposal and budget to conduct such training throughout the country for all schools (government, private and faith-based). We submitted a budget and proposal to the UNICEF education representatives and to Minister Kandakai. |
Dr.
Joan Hamilton and Stephanie Vickers, two members of the LEAP teacher training
team, traveled to Liberia in late December to assess the progress of the
local teacher training organization that LEAP had fostered. The civil
unrest that had contributed to the departure of Charles Taylor had left
the city unsettled but hopeful in the wake of a donor conference that
pledged hundreds of millions in aid from more than 100 countries. The
two friends of Liberia travelers wanted to gauge what that meant for small
local non-government organizations and try to position the teachers’
organization to be funded for their training activities. The following
is an account of their trip by Friends of Liberia President and LEAP team
leader Stephanie Vickers.
Our
first goal was to assist our LEAP co-trainers establish their own local
non-governmental organization (NGO). We also conducted staff development
training for the LET co-trainers. We also networked with the Ministry
of Education and other international NGOs (UNICEF, IRC and Mercy Corps)
about what was happening for education in Liberia and met with the U.S.
Ambassador John Blaney to see if the US Embassy had any plans to support
early childhood education and teacher training. We visited schools whose
teachers had been trained in LEAP workshops and we conducted a needs assessment
visit to the University of Liberia for The Trustees of Donations for Higher
Education in Liberia.
Our
first goal was accomplished relatively quickly after a year of stop and
start negotiations. On Jan. 9, LET became an official accredited local
educational NGO. This accreditation enables LET, composed of LEAP workshop
Liberian co-trainers, to apply for grants alongside international and
other local organizations. The Ministry of Education, in meetings with
the minister and her aides, opened the possibility of an office in the
ministry for the budding teacher-training enterprise. The co-trainers
of LET have selected officers for their NGO and are looking into establishing
a board of directors. Ernest Shaw and Theo Frankyu, both principals are
responsible for co-administration of LET. LET hopes to set up regular
workshops in the different counties and continue to support LEAP trained
teachers and introduce LEAP to interested teachers. The administrators
will also make site visits to schools to lend support and help to teachers.
It is hoped that this summer LET and LEAP will work together to hold a
training of trainers’ workshop and increase the number of co-trainers
to work throughout Liberia.
We
met with Minister of Education Dr. Kandakai to discuss her request to
use an Early Childhood manual developed by the LEAP U.S. trainers for
primary teachers in Liberia. Also present in our meetings were Deputy
Ministers Peter Ben and Marcus Dahn. LEAP has established as a condition
to giving the manual to the ministry that the teachers who receive it
must be trained on how to use the manual. Early Childhood teaching concepts
are very different from the education experience of most Liberians and
even from the commonly held concepts of Liberian teacher training. The
minister was made aware that 130 Liberian school teachers and principals
have been trained to teach these concepts to other Liberian teachers since
1999. The Minister said she wanted to print 5,000 copies and had asked
UNICEF to provide the printing. She set up a meeting with the education
program officers at UNICEF, MOE staff and the LEAP/LET staff. It was agreed
initially that UNICEF would print the manuals. Then UNICEF and MOE asked
LEAP to train all primary (ABC classes through third grade) teachers in
the use of the manual.