... I'd Quickly Revise UL Tuition Increment Policy

The report that graduate students at the University of Liberia are required this semester to pay US$55 per credit—not per course—is a woeful contradiction, and a great paradox, of Ellen's vision for Liberia .   Or, to say it the other way, it is a pathetic joke, and a mother of heartlessness that the predominantly poverty-stricken graduate students are requested to pay US$165 per three-credit-hour course, for instance, or US$660 for traditional minimal 12-credit course in a collapsed economy where the bulk of the population is grubbing for survival. Ellen's campaign venerated the value of education and make lavish pledges to make quality education accessible to all. Under present socioeconomic conditions, the reported astronomical increment of tuition, whether at primary, secondary, college or post-college level, unarguably betrays Ellen's campaign impressions and stabs in the back of her professed crusade for quality education and national recovery and development. She's got to move quickly to nip the announcement of increment of tuition at the University of Liberia into the bud.

e manifesto of the ruling Unity Party is eloquent and empathetic to the cause of education. Unity Party Platform: “ We firmly believe that our people want a brighter future. We totally reject this poor condition which is throwing our future away. A Unity Party led government will devote a substantial portion of the national resources to reform and strengthen the nation's basic and secondary education systems and institutions. The reformed system will take into account the interrelationship between education and poverty reduction, education and the development of a healthy and patriotic society, and education and the respect for good governance. It will lead to a vibrant education program that will impact the structure, content and management of the various social, economic and political sectors at all levels and in all regions.”

 How possible can this dream be, and promise comes out of its shell, when the University of Liberia , the only high public institution in the country, is in effect driving out knowledge-thirsty Liberians with highly unaffordable fees?

There are those who may argue that education is not cheap; and that if anyone thinks it is expensive, he should try to buy ignorance. Granted! But is it not true that pervasive ignorance and illiteracy are a threat to national development, security and stability? Does the lava of ignorance and illiteracy spare the educated and the developed when the volcano of social equality erupts? Did we not see during the period of our civil conflict how the twin forces of illiteracy and ignorance provided the composts upon which horrors and mayhem sprouted?

Or is one considered well-to-do and non-ignorant when he enters the postgraduate stage, which justifies the increment of tuitions for graduate students at the University of Liberia ? How can this be this case when most job advertisers are seeking people holding advanced education degrees, and when such category of Liberians are in short supply? Is it not true that many students at UL's graduate programs self-sponsored and unemployed? In fact, what is the take-home pay of typical college graduate in Liberia ? Is it not far below the cost of a single credit hour, US$150, now charged by the University of Liberia ?

And is the University of Liberia , the LUX en TENEBRIS, no more a public institution? Has it been privatized? Has it given up its traditional role of being Liberia 's major man-power-breeding hub? Or has it now being converted, if not perverted, into a school for only the elites, the aristocrats and their lackeys, as its forebear, the Liberia College , had largely been? Is highest public institution in the country now returning to the days when it was a factor, and driving force, the denial of education to the poor?

If I were Ellen, surely I would have quickly resist and reverse the decision by the University administration to increase tuition and fees so astronomically. I would realize that it is not only pure cruelty to cause striving Liberians students pay US$165 for a single course per semester, but also a clear antithesis to national recovery and development wrapped in Government's poverty reduction strategy. I would not forget that first degree, let alone mere secondary education in Liberia nowadays, would get any citizen make meaningful contribution to national development.