The Butaw High School in Butaw District is one of several schools affected by Golden Veroleum Liberia’s (GVL) suspension of support to teachers in Sinoe County. The DayLight/Varney Kamara
TARTWEH, Sinoe County – Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) has suspended a program through which it provided mandatory support to schools in its concession area in Sinoe County, crippling academic activities.
By Varney Kamara, withThe DayLight
Inked between 2013 and 2017, the MoUs were a product of GVL’s 65-year concession agreement with Liberia. It granted GVL the right to develop 220,000 hectares of plantations in southeastern and southcentral Liberia.
Thus, GVL launched the scheme during the 2020-2021 academic semester in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, GVL Workers’ Union, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and local communities. Then it placed 90 volunteer teachers on GVL’s payroll, providing each a US$100 monthly stipend, compensating for GVL’s inability to build schools in line with its MoUs with communities.
But in March, GVL suspended the program allegedly without any prior notice.
“GVL regrets to officially inform you that the GVL Educational Support (GES) program for the academic year 2023/2024 has been suspended with immediate effect,” GVL wrote the Tartweh-Drapoh District in a March letter last year.
Suspension of an employee’s service without prior notice violates Liberia’s Decent Work Act. The law requires GVL to have notified the teachers before suspending their contract.
GVL claims it informed the teachers before announcing the suspension but provided no proof. Similarly, The DayLight found no evidence of that happening.
The suspension undermines the learning environment of the forested coastal county, leaving hundreds of students on their own.
“The lack of pay for teachers is destroying the learning environment badly. The teachers are not showing the required commitment to teach,” said Armstrong Panteene, principal of Tartweh High School in Tubmanville.
“They don’t have their minds set on teaching because they are out there to find food for their families. We no longer have control over them,” Panteene added.
Last December, The DayLight saw students in Butaw, Tartweh, and Tarjuwon discussing the issue in groups, while others engaged socially. The situation has overwhelmed administrators across the communities, reducing the quality of learning.
At the Butaw High School, where GVL has 95 percent of its employees’ dependents, there are currently 14 teachers from a previous list of 18. The number of teachers at Tarweh High School in Kpayan District, and the Teahjay High School in Tarjuwon, Myerville Township has also declined.
“At the moment, we don’t have math, physics, and chemistry teachers. This is shameful and embarrassing,” said King Chester Kun, principal of the Butaw High School. “The school is empty, and students keep asking us about what’s going wrong.”
“Most times, when classrooms are empty, the school rings the bell, and everyone leaves for home,” said Ralph Carpeh, a 12th grader at Butaw High School. “We just pack our bags and go home because we are not able to teach ourselves.”
GVL plantation in Butaw, Sinoe County. The DayLight/Derick Snyder
The suspension is likely to impact enrollment in Sinoe.
Between 2015 and 2022, Sinoe recorded a drop in primary school enrollment, according to a 2021-2022 school census. Only 13 percent of public early childhood students in the county met readiness benchmarks.
The suspension worsens GVL’ failure to implement agreements it signed with communities.
“We entrusted our land to GVL with the promise of education, healthcare, and other important benefits. Yet today, Tartweh’s children are left with little to no education, as the company fails to honor its commitments under the MoU,” said Nunu Broh, chairman of the Tartweh-Drapoh Agriculture Committee.
Broken Promises
The aggrieved instructors, whose voluntary services range from six to 24 months, said the suspension had put them in hardship.
In May, volunteer teachers from Kpayan and Butaw districts sued GVL at the Greenville City Court for unpaid wages. GVL partially settled the claims, paying 24 teachers by July, court filings show.
However, dozens remain unpaid.
“GVL owes me three months of arrears,” said D. Swen Charles, a former volunteer teacher at Tartweh High School in Tubmanville. “They told us they would pay, but for now, that story has changed. There is no hope.”
Alphonso Kofi, GVL’s communications director, said the company did not commit any wrongdoing. Kofi claims that GVL is not obligated to continue the program.
“Volunteer teachers are recruited by the government to help support other teachers in those schools. GVL is only assisting them to compensate those who are not on the government’s payroll,” Kofi said in an emailed statement.
Kofi’s assertions contradict the MoUs between GVL and the communities. The documents obligate GVL to build schools and provide teaching materials in its concession areas free of charge.
“GVL will work with the Ministry of Education as appropriate, to confirm the location for schools, build schools it has agreed to provide, recruit and pay for teachers, maintain schools and provide study items in schools, which it builds or agrees to support,” says GVL’s 2017 MoU with Butaw.
The situation adds to the frail relationship GVL has with locals. In 2018, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) found GVL guilty of land grab. In 2022, the High Carbon Stock Approach, which addresses deforestation in agricultural practices, found that GVL cleared 1,000 hectares of high-carbon forests in the Kpanyan District.
The Green Livelihoods Alliance (GLA) provided funding for this story. The DayLight maintained editorial independence over the story’s content. It first appeared in The DayLight and has been published here as part of an editorial collaboration.
