Liberian parents provide farm labor to keep volunteer teachers in school

Parents in Manakpolor, a community in Bong County, Liberia, provide manual farm labor to support four volunteer teachers at the local elementary school.

This arrangement began after the Liberian government abolished registration fees for public elementary schools as part of a compulsory free education policy. Because the school can no longer collect fees to pay incentives to volunteer teachers, the community stepped in to ensure the teachers remain in the classroom.

The Parent-Teacher Association head, Arthur Deyeh, stated that the volunteers threatened to leave before the 2026/2027 academic year unless the community provided support. To prevent the education of more than 200 students from being disrupted, the association organized residents to work on the teachers' private farms. During the farming season, community members clear, clean, and harvest rice on these plots four times to serve as a substitute for monetary wages.

While the community remains committed to keeping the teachers, some parents expressed concern that working on the teachers' land takes away time from their own farms. Arthur Deyeh urged the government to officially hire the volunteers or establish a permanent payment system. Shelor Namue, a human resource officer at the Bong County Education Office, noted that a shortage of teachers persists in the county.

He reported that previous administrations retired more than 350 teachers while hiring only 30 replacements, leaving a gap that the current administration has not yet fully filled.