“Unfair Decision’’

-Bishop Simpson Describes Minister Sonie’s Pronouncement

By T. Saye Goinleh
A Veteran Liberian educator and vice head of the Haywood Mission School on the Old Road, Dr. Leo M. Simpson has sharply reacted to a recent statement by Liberia’s education Minister D. Ansu Sonii threatening to dismiss principals whose students fail to make a successful pass in the 2018/2019 WASSCE’s examinations recently administered across the country.

Speaking to a team of reporters on Wednesday, June 27, 2018 on the campus of the institution, Dr. Simpson said Minister Sonii’s threat was ‘unfair’ because all schools operating in the country including Haywood were given a curriculum by the Education Ministry to be taught in all schools and wonders while should the Minister issue such a warning to dismiss school principals because their students failed in the WASSCE.
“The ministry is taking the result of WASSCE very seriously and that when students fail, it was the schools and their principals and teachers who fail, adding according to Min. Sonii, starting next academic year, all students who failed will not be allowed to do re-sitter. This is unfair’’, Dr. Simpson declared.
At the same time, Dr. Simpson marvels as to how will a 12th grade student who successfully completed a curriculum prescribed by the Ministry of Education and taught by schools’ authorities and at the same went on make a pass will not be allowed to graduate only because he or she failed in WASSCE-that extra test administered by a regional body.
The Heywood Mission vice principal is meanwhile calling on Minister Sonii to work with stakeholders in the educational sector including the leadership of the High School Principals’ Association of Liberia to find a suitable solution to problems being faced by Liberian schools with keen observation that some schools lack library and laboratory which at times hinder their students’ performance instead of issuing threats.
He announced that all of Haywood’s senior students who took the 2018/2019 West African Examinations Council Senior School Certificate (WASSCE) test have been issued provisional clearances and are awaiting results from WASSCE.
It can be recalled that at a recent Ministry of Information’s regular press conference, Education Minister Ansu Sonii threatened the dismissal of principals whose schools would perform dismally in the recent WASSCE’s exams, describing it as a sign of “weak and poor supervision’’.
At the same time, Minister Sonii was quoted as saying that “it was the duty of principals of schools to ensure that their students are properly taught the required materials that they need to avoid failure.”