Bridge given top rating by Liberian Ministry of Education and awarded 43 more schools
The Liberian Ministry of Education has announced that Bridge Liberia is to be allocated an additional 43 schools in Liberia for year two of Partnership Schools for Liberia (PSL). The total number of public schools for Bridge Liberia Liberia Liberia in year two of PSL will be 68.
Bridge Liberia and two other PSL providers were acknowledged as demonstrating ‘significant quality of implementation and ability to scale’ by the Liberian Ministry of Education.
Marcus Wleh, Head of Bridge Liberia in Liberia, said: “This is good news for the children of Liberia, as we want as many as possible to benefit from the PSL program. We are proud that the Liberian government has recognised the significant impact that Bridge has made during the PSL first pilot year.
“We are utterly focussed on delivering learning gains for children in our classroom and the A rating by the Liberian government acknowledges our success. We have measured clear acceleration of learning for students with Bridge Liberia so far and are confident this will continue.
“Education reform is always challenging but the Liberian government has been determined to improve the education outcomes of its children and we are delighted to be a partner in that endeavour and look forward to the progress we can continue to make together.”
Liberian Education Minister, George Werner, added: “We are committed to ensuring that PSL remains a child-centric, evidence-based, and performance-driven program. We will be working with our partners over the coming weeks to ensure that independent monitoring and evaluation continues to be a cornerstone of the program in Year 2 and beyond.”
The allocation will mean that hundreds of children in Liberia will be able to join high performing schools, for free, managed by Bridge Liberia.
The Liberian Ministry of Education says PSL will expand and focus on the South East of Liberia, which has the worst enrolment rates for the country. Year two will see a total of 200 schools in the programme, an increase of over 90% from year one. Liberia has a total of approximately 2,800 primary schools.
The school operator rating was based on the following criteria set by the Ministry of Education:
- Improved teacher attendance
- Assessment of extent of intervention
- Capacity to scale as demonstrated by scale internationally
- Effective tracking of student assessment
- Learning gains
Bridge Liberia is confident that the significant learning gains will be replicated in Liberia.
