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Contributive Investment in Tertiary Education -
Remarks by Her Excellency President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Visitor of the University of Liberia, Occasion of the 87th commencement Convocation Of the University of LiberiaWednesday, April 27, 2009, at the S.K.D. Stadium, Monrovia
Mr. Vice President;
Mr. Speaker and Members of the National Legislature;
Mr. President
of the University of Liberia;
Excellencies Mr. Doyen and Members of the Diplomatic Corps;
Her Excellency, the Special
Representative of the Secretary General
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Let me begin by expressing my congratulations and felicitations, to you the graduates of this 87th Commencement Convocation
of the University of Liberia, on behalf of the Government of Liberia, and in my own name, for your individual achievements.
As is customary on this propitious academic occasion, I am pleased, as the Visitor of the University to respond to Board of Trustees’ invitation to make brief remarks.
First and foremost, let me say that it is time for contributive investment in higher education in our country. By this initiative, all stakeholders should now take responsibility to make strategic choices that would develop national capacities, and provide equity and access that ensure timely and meaningful post-war reconstruction.
As we celebrate this exultant day marking the achievements of 2,500 graduates, 30% of whom are women, we are reminded that tertiary education is not merely a capstone of our educational system; it is one of the critical strategic objectives in our Poverty Reduction Strategy. Our government’s goal is to improve the quality of tertiary education, while undertaking its phased expansion and decentralization outside of Monrovia, including curriculum revision, national accreditation, the retention and recruitment of qualified faculty and administrators, among others.
This is a sure way for capacity development that would provide, as soon as possible, the advanced skills set required to expand our labor market and train the cadre of human resources urgently needed for post-war reconstruction.
Our country now needs trained women and men to develop through creativity, research, study, discovery and invention and unsurpassed intellectual endowments our country’s multifaceted natural and other resources which distinguish our comparative advantages that can re-elevate Liberia as a competitive global partner in the community of nations. We need more entrepreneurs, managers, organizers, inventors, not only job seekers and employees.
We have a University with over a century’s legacy in higher education that is now emerging from decline due to the effects of a prolonged civil war. We now need a university that can work towards attaining our post-war development objectives. The strategic question confronting us is whether we can afford this type of university.
The answer must be a resounding yes, but where all stakeholders, including the government, the University and its constituents, especially the thousands of its alumni, our international partners, civil society, and students themselves, through family contributions, must now donate to the investment of their human capital, which is so critical for post-war capacity development.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF GOVERNMENT TO DATE
It is useful in the current tough economic time characterized by the Global Economic Crisis to reiterate some of our government’s accomplishments in education. I must say that in spite of the many competing priorities, tertiary education has been treated fairly although much is still needed for the contributive investment we now aspire. Despite possible economic impacts because of the decline in the world economy, our government will endeavor to provide a satisfactory magnitude of investment in tertiary education in the next fiscal year.
In this respect, our government's commitment to expanding access to quality education remains undaunted. Overall, national school enrollment now stands at close to 1.3 million. As a result of implementation of the Free and Compulsory Primary Education Policy, Primary enrollment has increased by 195% to from 375,277 in 2004 to about 1,107,271 at present. For its part, secondary enrollment increased from 89,746 to 158,242 over the same period, representing about 76 percent increase.
At the tertiary level, total enrollment for the recognized seven undergraduate degree-granting institutions, is now over 1.3 million. The University of Liberia alone now has close to 19,000 students. The government’s current subsidy to the University is US$4 million or over one-half the University's total budget of US$7.4 million. This contributes to the academic needs 17,467 undergraduates, and 1,200 graduate students, including slightly one-fifth of the overall enrollment that is female.
Collaboration with our partners is already bearing fruit, renovation and new construction works are now undergoing at the UL Main, Medical and Fendall campuses. This developmental initiative will serve as a Works on dormitories and teachers housing are now underway at the University’s new campus at Fendall, thanks to a US$21 million contribution from the government of the People’s Republic of China.
Through our foreign travels, we have appealed for contributions that are now bearing fruits. The Government of Italy is now rehabilitating the A.M. Dogliotti College of Medicine. At the same time, our government has just signed a Technical Agreement with the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, through its Technical Assistant Corps (TAC), for the placement of about 100 Nigerian professors and doctors in our educational institutions and hospitals.
We have also approved an endowment of about US$2.4 million for the University of Liberia. Let me reiterate
my call for the UL Board of Trustees and the new UL Administration to undertake more initiatives in expanding this endowment,
by engaging our partners for assistance in cash and kind, including the many foreign tertiary education institutions with
which the University is now collaborating.
Members of the University community, students, family friends, faculty,
and graduates, for our part, Contributive Investment means that the University of Liberia is a key part in the revitalization
strategy of relevant tertiary education system, including an expanding group of public and private group of post-secondary
institutions now being vetted by the National Commission on Higher Education, to include country-colleges, polytechniques,
teacher training institutes, and vocational schools.
We are now renovating the William V.S. Tubman Technical College in Harper, Maryland County as a test case of the satellite University campus system. Through our own budgetary support, renovation work has started on the Technical College in preparation for its reopening in September 2009, and full operations in 2010.
We also note with satisfaction that the rehabilitated rural teacher training institutions at Kakata and Zorzor, through the assistance of USAID, are now in full operations as we conclude arrangements for similar work in Webbo, and a Polytechnique, to be part of the University of Liberia System, in Sinje, Grand Cape Mount County.
Relevant Contributive Investment, to paraphrase Tertiary Education Expert, William Saint, should include the educational choices made by the university that are congruent with the attaining our PRS, and responsive to the prevailing labor market, through the adoption of appropriate curricula, capacity for critical and innovative thinking on issues of national importance, the transmission of essential professional and cultural values, institutional processes and behavior that equip graduates for entrepreneurial leadership in a post-war economy with a limited budget, and adequate national, county, gender, and ethnic representation in the composition of staff and students.
We call on all our partners, including US government, to look into the possibility of resuscitating and re-instituting the Fulbright Scholars program. In the same vein, the University should present proposals to appropriate bilateral and multilateral agencies, through government’s support to retain qualified faculty on the ground and begin the repatriation of expatriate Liberian professionals in the Diaspora. These programs, when resumed, will increase the teaching capacity of the University.
For its part, the University must focus its energies to training entrepreneurs who have creative ambition, intelligence, and perseverance. The University must also do its part by researching and finding solutions to the many vexing post-war problems, tribalism, and cures for malaria, HIV/STDs and related diseases, now threatening our population.
While
government will continue to do that which it can to ensure that its citizens have access to higher education, government's
support has always been a subsidy supplemented by finances from other sources, such as tuition and fees, philanthropic donations,
endowments, naming opportunities. In better days, Government will continue to provide substantial support to UL. However,
other sources of revenues must be developed.
CONCLUSIONS
Reiterate chief features of CI.
Words of Inspiration to Graduates and stakeholders
Repeat calls from Private sector to support graduates
Call
on the private sector to employ graduates and on graduates to use the entrepreneurial spirit.
As the name commencement
implies, you have just completed meaningful laps in your career life cycles: vocations that should prove meaningful and rewarding
to you, your families, your communities, and your country, yea the World.
As your Visitor, I take pride in sharing your joys and accomplishments, and wish you Godspeed in achieving your dreams. Enjoy the day with your families, and loved ones, for you have worked so hard to earn your various degrees.
I THANK YOU!
STATISTIC OF GRADUATES FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF LIBERIA
Thirty-one
employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were on Wednesday, April 29, 2009, among the 
2. 143 students who walked through the great walls of the nation’s highest institution of learning, the University of
Liberia, with degrees in various disciplines following their satisfactory completion of all academic requirements of the University.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs tops various government ministries and agencies by producing the highest number of graduates from the University of Liberia among government institutions. A total of 11 females and 20 males are recorded for the Ministry of foreign Affairs which is headed by Olubanke King-Akerele.
The 31 employees are from the various bureaux including Foreign Service Institute, Public Affairs, Afro-Asian Affairs, International Cooperation, Legal Affairs, Protocol, Publication Administration and Liberian Diplomatic Mission in Addis Ababa, among other bureaux.
A statistical breakdown shows that ten females and 13 males obtained Bachelor Degrees in various disciplines from the under-graduate colleges at the University of Liberia, while one female and over five males earned various degrees and certificates from the Professional Schools, including Master of Arts Degrees in International Relations.
Two of the 31 Foreign Ministry employees earned a Master of Arts Degree in International Relations from the Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida Graduate School of International Studies (IBB), University of Liberia, while the rest obtained their various degrees from the under-graduate colleges at the University of Liberia.
The two employees are Assistant Foreign Minister for Public Affairs, Josephus M. Gray and George S. W. Pattern of the Liberian Diplomatic Mission in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Assistant Minister Gray is an author of a 185-page thesis entitled: "The Liberian Civil War-1989-2003: The Major Causes and ECOWAS Intervention."
Assistant Minister Gray has written and published several critical articles which include West Africa Unforgotten Civil War, Failures & Successes in Governments, ECOWAS Intervention in Civil War in the MRU Basin, The Quest for a Viable Independent Press in Liberia, Remember September 11 Terrorist Attacks , Factors that Serve as Obstacle to
Professional Journalism in Hostile Zone, The 1994 Africa Unforgotten Genocide and Way Forward, The Responsibility to Report: A New Journalism Model, and Matching Liberian Media Against United States Press: …Similarity & Disparity, among others.
Meanwhile, the 87th Commencement of the University of Liberia produced the largest graduates in the history of the university, with the total of 2,437 graduates obtaining degrees from under-graduate, professional and graduate schools.
Other graduates from the IBB Graduate Program include Cletus A Sieh, Deputy Minister for Administration, Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism Affairs; Alhaji G.V. Kromah, Associate Professor of Mass Communications; Cornelius N. Nagbe, a Liberian journalist, Thomas S.B. Kaydor, President of the 2007/2008 IBB Graduates; James D. Hallowanger of the Liberian National Police and Jerry T. Taylor of the Ministry of Finance.
Others are George W. Howe, former Assistant Minister of Finance for Revenue and Joe K. Touah, former Managing Director of the National Port Authority (NPA), while the rest are Sahr S. K. Sellu, Charles G. Williams, Chester D. Bah, Jerome Clarke, Alex Cooper, Olabisi A. Dare of the African Union, Moiba Fofana, Instructor of English, UL; Abana T. Togba and Arthur T. Johnson, among others.
According to the statistical breakdown of the graduates, the Graduate Program in Educational Administration produced 51 graduates; Graduate Program in Business and Public Administration, 28, while 42 persons obtained Masters Degree from the Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida Graduate School of International Studies (IBB). Also the Graduate Program in Regional Science conferred Masters Degree on 43 individuals.
A statistical breakdown published in the UL Souvenir Programme for 87th Commencement indicates that 294 graduated from the Graduate Programs and Professional Schools while 2,143 students of the of the total 2437 are recorded for the Undergraduate Colleges which include Liberia College (College of Social Sciences & Humanities), College of Business and Public Administration, William R. Toblert, Jr. College of Agriculture & Forestry, T. J. R. Faulkner College of Science & Technology and William V.S. Tubman Teachers College.The various Professional Schools also produced graduates with the School of Pharmacy conferring degree on five people, Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law, 60; A.M. Dogliotti College of Medicine, four and 55 from the Kofi Annan Institute of Conflict Studies.
For the undergraduate level, the Liberia College (College of Social Sciences & Humanities) graduated the total number of 516, with Mass Communication Department producing 48 graduates, History, two; French Department, three; English and Literature, two; Department of Political Science, 36 while the Sociology and Anthropology Department graduated 395 students.
The College of Business and Public Administration produced 1,338 graduates, with the Department of Accounting graduating 586; Department of Economics, 281; Management Department, 396; while the Department of Public Administration produced 116.
The T. J. R. Faulkner College of Science & Technology 185 graduates, with Biology Department graduating 119; Chemistry Department, 9; Mathematics, 17; Physics, three; Zoology, 13; Civil Engineering, 12; Electrical Engineering, 18; Mining Engineering, one student and Geology, one student.
The William R. Toblert, Jr. College of Agriculture & Forestry produced the total of 74 graduate, with 38 persons graduating from the Department of General Agriculture, Agronomy, four and General Forestry, 34 graduates. The William V.S. Tubman Teachers College produced 86 graduates, with 28 persons graduating from the Department of Primary Education and 60 persons obtaining degree from Secondary Education.
The 87th Commencement Convocation of the nation’s highest institution of learning, the University of Liberia, was epitomized by poignant feeling, joy and tears with bulk of the graduates and their family members bopping and celebrating, while other alumnae and their relations were seen visibly weeping at the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex in Paynesville where the April 29, 2009 historic occasion was held.
The colorful event was well planned unlike Baccalaureate Service which was poorly-planned. The major routes and feeder ones leading to the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex, the suburb of Paynesville experienced awful congested traffic as thousands of love-ones and well-wishers flocked the SKD Sports Complex to share their joy with the graduates.
Many had to stop their vehicles as far as the SKD Boulevard (few miles away from the main venue) due to the heavy traffic. The inconveniences were visible on the faces of those traveling to and from the commercial district of Red-light in vehicles that moved at a snail pace.
The stadium was crowded with joyous graduates and their well-wishers, professor and journalists that went to cover the occasion.
The occasion at SKD Sports Complex commenced informally with thousands of dancers and singing groups who patiently waited for the formal commencement procession of graduates, who were showered with praises as they marched into the commencement hall.
Major entertainment centers were overcrowded with both graduates and well wishers, while owners of other petty businesses within the vicinity of the SKD complex were seen beaming with smiles , an indication that they were also cashing in on the occassion which appeared to be at least "a better day."
Describing the graduating class as the "real graduates" in the history of the University of Liberia, the President of the University, Dr. Emmett Dennis, said in the midst of all ‘the rocky hills’ in obtaining their education, the graduates were determined in obtaining their degrees, adding that they successfully completed the prescribed academic curriculum of the university.
"You are the real graduates of our institution", a proud-looking Dr. Dennis told the crowd. He seems to be touched by the non-relenting spirit of most the graduates who proved not to fall victims to some of the inherent inadequacies and malpractices of the contemporary world. He re-emphasized previous response made to a question as to whether he could ‘beat his chest’ (if he is too proud) for the graduates, to which he said:
"I am very proud that they have successfully completed the prescribed academic curriculum of the University.
He said: I can beat my chest if a graduate has made a significant contribution to society or is renowned by his or her accomplishment. Therefore as graduates your significance in life is definitely not synonymous with the accumulated grade point average, but that which you make of it.
The University of Liberia was established in 1862 as Liberia College and became a University in 1951. UL as the oldest degree-granting institution in West Africa, it has trained leaders of many countries, including Liberia and other African countries, churches, industries, and commerce.
During Africa's colonial period, the University provided higher education for many Africans for whom such education was unavailable in their colonies. The University of Liberia has continued to provide higher education for many Africans even during post-colonial times. Liberia College was incorporated by an Act of the Legislature of Liberia in December, 1851.
The cornerstone for the first building, financed by the Trustees of Donations for Education in Liberia, was laid on January 25, 1858. Consequently, in 1951, the Legislature of the Republic chartered the University of Liberia.
The Charter granted the University of Liberia by the Legislature merged its constituent elements: Liberia College (by then, the Liberal & Fine Arts College) and the William V.S. Tub man Teachers College. Many other colleges were created over the years of its existence.
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