The_Open_Door_deel1

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mark of 70$. This shocking and alarming result paved the
way for %he introduction of the National Examination Programme.
Thus, since 1961, National Examinations are held toward the close
of each school year in the terminal grades of the elementary,
junior high and senior high schools (66).
Beneficiaries of Scholarships (1963-1964)
The availability of educational facilities, and their quality?
and the opportunities offered in this respect to the various.
segments of the population form interesting yardsticks to measure
the seriousness of the Liberian Government's much lauded National
Unification Policy. It should immediately be added that the
(public) positive evaluation of this Unification Policy mainly
served political purposes and did not correspond with the
(Liberian) reality. The following may illustrate this.
According to the results of the 1962 Population Census the group
of Liberians with no tribal affiliation ("the Americo-Liberians")
consisted of 23,478 people, which represented 2,3$ of the
country's total population (67). However, of the beneficiaries
of the scholarships awarded in 1963/64 and of the students who
in that year returned from abroad, (at least) 88,5$ were Americo-
Liberians (68).
The Number of Schools, Teachers and
Students (selected years 1944-1974)
Reliable and detailed information on the development of
education in Liberia unfortunately does not exist. "Facts"
depend in general on a haphazard collection of material, or on
incidental surveys. Even information provided by the Ministry
of Education has proved on more than one occasion to be
unreliable. In 1958, e.g. the Director of Elementary Education
within this Ministry, Mrs. Laura Tucker, reported that she had
discovered that the previously reported enrolment of the
(public) elementary schools was inaccurate. Further, and to her
great surprise, she had to admit that some of the schools
registered at the Department of Public Instruction did not
exist in reality (69).
In spite of these inaccuracies, which resulted from
administrative underdevelopment and from corruption, a certain
trend is distinguishable after a study of the changes which
characterize the past thirty years, 1944 - 1974, and which
indicates that Liberia in the post-war period underwent more
changes in the field of education than ever before in its
history. Of course, much was still left to be desired, as will
be clear after the previous paragraphs. Table 57 summarizes these
changes during the 1944 - 1974 period.