The children of Liberia are thriving in revamped public schools

Young children in Liberia are joining schools that will propel them forward and leapfrog years of standard education progress. This is one of the most exciting education reforms in the world and I continue to be amazed at the incredible changes that are unfolding in Liberia.

According to UNICEF, about 30% of boys and 28% of girls attend primary school in Liberia. Only about six in ten of those who go to primary school actually finish it. The rest will drop out because there are pressing needs at home, or because of sickness, pregnancy, or maybe their parents realise they’re not actually learning a great deal. This is all normal for Liberia. So it’s no wonder many young people can’t read and write. In 2013, among adult women who finished elementary school, only 25% could read a complete sentence.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the worst school enrolment rates in the world. And even in this context, Liberia has below-average learning for the region.

But things are changing. A handful of the free public schools in Liberia are very different.

Roughly 200 schools are in an innovative programme called Partnership Schools for Liberia (PSL). This is a pilot in which the government partnered with eight independent school operators to help improve public schools. These schools teach the Liberian curriculum with innovative approaches, using Liberian certified teachers. The government of Liberia is seeing if she can accelerate education reform and offer her children a better education by utilising the help of organisations that have proven experience of delivering learning gains in countries like Liberia.

This program involves sensible government reform policies on:

1. Schools hours: increasing the day from four to six hours of learning at Bridge PSL public schools.
2. Teacher quality: having literate and present teachers for every lesson every day.
3. Class sizes: Bridge PSL public schools have kept to the government’s maximum class size of 55. In year one, 15% of the classrooms we inherited from the government had an average of 113 kids in each class. That is far too big for a healthy learning experience.

These are simple issues people can sometimes take for granted in places like the USA and UK, but important policy changes for a country like Liberia.

It’s been running for one year already, and according to an expert external evaluation, our students are learning at double the rate of their peers in traditional public schools. So that means one year in our school is the equivalent of about two years in a traditional public school.

Looking at just English and Maths, you can see from this bar graph the incredible acceleration that children have been experiencing in Bridge PSL public schools:

The government has been carefully trialling the scheme and wanted to make sure their ideas worked in just 100 schools, before expanding to 200 this year.

Across the whole PSL program and all partners:

• Students scored 0.18 standard deviations higher in English and 0.18 standard deviations higher in mathematics compared to students in regular public schools. This is the equivalent of 0.56 extra years of schooling for English and 0.66 extra years of schooling for math.
• The program increased teachers’ quality of instruction. Teachers in PSL schools were 20 percentage points more likely to be in school during a random spot check (from a base of 40 percent in comparison schools) and 16 percentage points more likely to be engaged in instruction during class time (from a base of 32 percent in comparison schools).
• Students in partnership schools spent roughly twice as long learning each week, when taking into account reduced absenteeism, increased time on task, and longer school days in PSL schools.
• Parents and students in PSL schools were happier with their schools. Students in PSL schools were more likely to think that school is fun, and parents were more likely to be satisfied with the education that their children were receiving.
• In a parents satisfaction survey conducted 98% of our parents said they were satisfied with the program and 96% said they would recommend Bridge PSL to another parent

Obviously, these results are a huge success for the program, so the government are rightly expanding the scheme so many thousands more children can take part.

At grass root level in communities across Liberia there is incredible support for this. Over​ ​80%​ ​of​ ​parents​ ​and​ ​teachers​ ​at​ ​traditional public​ ​schools​ ​wish​ ​Bridge​ ​and​ ​other​ ​PSL​ ​partners​ ​would​ ​open​ ​more​ ​PSL​ ​public schools. There is a lot to celebrate here. 27,000 children have benefited from year one of PSL as a whole. This year approximately 70,000 children are forecast to benefit from the program across all 15 counties.

There has been some criticism since the publication of the independent report that showed these learning gains. Some claim that too many teachers were moved or students denied access to these schools. Or that Bridge has been spending too much money on these children.

The simple truth is that the Liberian Ministry of Education set the rules for this scheme, and Bridge has simply been following those rules. We replaced teachers who were chronically absent or illiterate. We set class sizes as the government recommended for this pilot, to prevent crowded classes.

Our ​total first-year​ ​operating​ ​cost​ was ​$373​ ​per​ ​student.​ Bridge did spend more in the first year than other partners in PSL, and also had higher learning gains. As directed by the Ministry of Education, we invested in building a strong support team and systems in the first year, as a foundation for future work in future years. Our cost per child for Year 2 is currently forecast at ~$220 per child, and we are on track for having costs down to $50 per child in 2020. We expect our learning gains to continue on track, as the cost of the program comes down, and look forward to the RCT continuing to track that progress in the coming years.

Further findings reveal Partnership Schools for Liberia has:

• Better Managed Schools: PSL public schools are better managed — inclusion in the PSL program moves the average public school from the 50th to the 66th percentile in management practices — in just one school year.
• Happier Parents and Teachers: Over 80% of parents and teachers at traditional public schools wish Bridge and other PSL partners would open more PSL public schools.
• Happier, More Educated, More Civic Minded Students: Students are happier in PSL public schools than in traditional public schools, and less likely to be absent. They are also more likely to think school is useful, and more likely to think elections are the best way to choose a president.

We think it’s a good thing that international funding is being brought into Liberia’s education system and we are proud to be subsidising public schools in Liberia. We have raised millions of dollars in philanthropic funds to be part of the PSL. Our backers know that the children of Liberia deserve better and are proud to be part of the solution.

I am incredibly proud of every student and teacher at the Bridge PSL schools. I’m also delighted by the work that our whole team have been doing over the last eighteen months. It just goes to show that low income countries don’t have to put up with a status-quo of low quality education, just because they have small education budgets. Even with small budgets, governments can make innovate education policy decisions, like Liberia, and experience a fast transformation through the power of partnerships.

Of course, children in Liberia are born with the same potential and talent that children have anywhere else in the world. But their education system has so often held them back. Now, thanks to changes made by their government, they are more likely to realise that potential and help Liberia become a prosperous land.