The_Open_Door_deel1

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At the time of the arrival of the first major foreign investor
the country's educational situation could be summarized as
shown in Table 52. There were 142 schools with a total student
enrolment of about 8,700. It is interesting to note that it was
reported that at that time some 140 organized churches were
established in the country (33).
TYPE OF SCHOOL
Government school
Mission school
EDUCATIONAL
Other Private school
TOTAL
Source:
TABLE 52
STATISTICS
NUMBER
OF
SCHOOLS
56
83
3
142
- Adapted from Boon: 1929; p.123.
1925/1926
NUMBER
OF
TEACHERS
60
201
8
262
NUMBER
OF
STUDENTS
2,000
6,624
75
The 1925 Budget allocated $ 18,120 for education which amount
included $ 7,000 for Liberia College. Even when to this amount
was added some $ 5,000 taken from the native poll tax the
resulting total amount of $ 23,120 represented only a little over
three per cent of total Government Revenue. This was little
compared with e.g. educational expenditures of $ 186,000 in
neighbouring Sierra Leone (34). With such a low priority for
education it is no longer surprising that the General Education
Act of 1900 was never enforced or applied to the whole of the
country's territory. The following may illustrate this low
priority. In 1932 the then Secretary of Public Instruction,
G.W. Gibson, transferred funds from the "Government Depository
for the purchase of textbooks" to another account which had been
opened to entertain the visiting President of the American
Colonization Society, Henry L. West. This transfer of funds was
explained by Secretary Gibson when he stated that "(...) which
Looks are not all required at this time (...)" (35),
The picture is even made more unfavourable by the fact that most
public schools covered the first to the third grades only. About
twenty Government schools went beyond the third grade.