The plight of Early Childhood Education learners in Liberia, especially from nursery to Grade 3, deserves urgent national attention. Too many children are sitting in classrooms during the most important years of brain development without teachers who have been properly trained in ECE pedagogy. These young learners need facilitators who understand play-based learning, child development, early literacy, numeracy, classroom routines, and age-appropriate assessment.

This problem is especially visible in many private and faith-based schools, where children are often taught by caring but untrained teachers who have not received professional preparation in how young children learn. When the foundation is weak, the entire education journey is affected. A child who does not learn to recognize sounds, read simple words, count, think, speak, and interact confidently in the early grades will continue to struggle in upper primary, junior high, and senior high school.

In addition to traditional mass failures in matriculation and WAEC batteries, consider the recent AFL recruitment scenario.

Today, Liberia is seeing the painful result: many young people graduate from high school but cannot read beyond the Grade 3 level. This is not merely a student problem; it is a system problem. We must invest in training ECE teachers, especially those serving in nursery to Grade 3 classrooms. Strengthening ECE pedagogy is one of the surest ways to rescue Liberia’s future, one child, one teacher, and one classroom at a time.

The Charge To Keep

The Diversified Educators Empowerment Project (DEEP) led by Dr. Moses Blonkanjay Jackson is on a journey to mitigate this situation. The least any patriotic Liberian can do is to :hear me out.”

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