Thousands of children receive school supplies

Hundreds of thousands of children who were kept out of class by Liberia's civil war have started receiving school kits containing pencils and exercise books in preparation for a Back-To-School (BTS) programme, which will be launched on 3 November. Coordinated by the Liberian Ministry of Education and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the free compulsory education programme aims to provide 750,00 Liberian children, 20,000 teachers and 3,700 schools with basic supplies. The first consignments were sent out on Thursday. UNICEF appealed to donors for US $6 million to fund the programme last month. But officials said no money has been received yet, prompting UNICEF Liberia to borrow money from UNICEF headquarters in anticipation of donations coming in later. Initially, UNICEF is providing 4,662 school-in-a-box kits for 372,960 children of primary school age in six of Liberia's 15 counties where relative peace has returned after 14 years of civil war. These are Bomi, Bong, Grand Bassa, Grand Cape Mount, Margibi and Montserrado counties in central and southwestern Liberia. The kits, valued at $1.3 million were being transported from the port of Monrovia to distribution centres. More materials to create some 180 temporary classes for a further 9,000 children arrived on Thursday and more were expected next week, UNICEF said. "The children in these counties started registering for school on 20 October. We expect to complete distributing the kits on 1 November, so that they can start class on 3 November," Durudee Sirichanya, UNICEF Communication Officer in Liberia, told IRIN on Friday. "For a start, UNICEF is creating temporary learning spaces, such as shelters covered with plastic sheets to protect the children from rain. We will move into more counties as they become accessible," Sirichanya said. The World Food Programme is due to provide food rations for the children and teachers while they are in school. It will also give some food to staff in the education ministry. Like most other civil servants, government-employed teachers have not received a salary for more than two years. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) is providing plastic sheets to cover 300 classrooms while the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and UN Operations Programme (UNOPS) have promised to rehabilitate 12 schools. Sirichanya told IRIN that UNICEF's country director in Liberia, Cyrille Niameogo, met the new head of state, Gyude Bryant, on Thursday to discuss the programme. "Bryant promised that education will be a top priority for his government," she said. "The government is however badly in need of help. The schools don't even have a desk and teachers have not been paid for years." Niameogo said in a statement: "These school supplies are priceless considering the opportunity they will provide Liberian children who have seen too much and suffered too long. With this BTS program, the government, UN agencies and educational partners are one step closer to getting Liberian children back to School." He added: "This is a difficult, but clearly worthwhile effort. The education infrastructure is in dire need of development. At this point in time, we are working as an emergency response...focused on training teachers in emergency education." Years of war have devastated Liberia's education system and all schools in Monrovia have been closed since rebel force began a two-month assault on the capital in early June. According to UNICEF, there are about 1.4 million children of school going age (3-18 years old) in Liberia but only 25 percent of them are enrolled in school. Many of the rest have become child soldiers, street children and juvenile delinquents. There are at least 15,000 child soldiers still enrolled in various armed groups, relief workers said. Only 37 percent of Liberians can read or write and 74 percent of all women are illiterate.