University of Liberia Hires 114 Unqualified Teachers

The ugliest and wildly spoken about in today's Liberia is corruption which brings abject poverty. It is a well described phenomenon in the Oxford English dictionary as 'willing to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain' to the deterrent of others. The majority of Liberians miserably live in abject poverty due to rampant and systematic practices of corruption which is explicitly visible and occurs mostly at all levels in both public and private sectors from ministries, agencies, corporations, national legislature, judiciary, security forces, banks, schools, markets, worship Places, organizations, and media houses.

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has persistently acknowledged that corruption is “systemic, prevalent and endemic in public sector, describing corruption as public enemy number one and vampire but this virus is not only limited to public sector, but also visible in other sectors including the University of Liberia.

The General Auditing Commission (GAC) among many things has booked Dr. Emmett Dennis’ administration of rampant corruption of failing adhering to the recruitment policy stipulated in Article IV, Section 1 and 2 of its Handbook. The GAC observed that the University is engaged in the recruitment of inexperienced and unqualified instructors who lack the requisite credentials to teach courses at the nation’s highest institution of learning, despite of huge monthly salary and benefits.

The administration of the University of Liberia has admitted violating several regulations under the Public Procurement and Concession Commission (PPCC) act, but said those violations were not deliberate but were committed based on the prevailing situation.

According to the audit, The Dennis’s admission has hired and employed 114 unqualified persons most of whom are just pitiful first degree holders to teach courses above freshman level, but the Vice President for Academic Affairs, Professor Momolu Getaweh attributed this to the lack of qualified staff which he said has constrained the University in hiring unqualified instructors to teach courses. There were also instances where some appointments were made without approval by the UL’s President and the Board of Trustees.

The report further stated that the University of Liberia received government subsidy of US$7,685,161.00 for the period 2008/09 and out of this amount US$5,468,000.00 was appropriated for improvement of salaries and benefits for faculty and administrative staff.

The report said instead of hiring qualified persons to teach at the university, the administration hired the services of unqualified persons to teach in order to afford the UL administration to temper with the budgetary teachers’ salary.

In his reaction to the audit, Dr. Getaweh said the administration of the university carried out transactions that they should not have done some of which included giving out contracts without publishing those contracts but declared that those things happened under a given situation.

Speaking recently on corruption at the University, he said some reasons because of our situation we did things that we shouldn’t have done but it wasn’t deliberate they were done based on the situation we found ourselves.

The report further stated that this amount constitutes 65% of the subsidy received. For the period 2009/10, the UL also received government subsidy of US$12,559,987.00, of which US$8,114,407.00 was allotted for salaries and benefits of administrative and instructional staff, an amount that constitutes 65% of the subsidy received, the report continued.

In a Transmittal letter from the GAC to the PAC the Auditor General informed the PAC that the report, is the first audit commissioned on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of Staffing Regulation at the University of Liberia. The report according to the GAC covers the operating period FY 2008/09 and 2009/10.

The UL Vice president said :“My reviewed of files of full time instructional staff revealed that the employment of 84 out of 566 instructional staff were made without the approval of the President and the Board of Trustees.

According to him, the non- adherence to the procedures in the University’s Handbook was wholly responsible for the non-approval of the eighty-four (84) full-time instructional staff, which led to the hiring of full-time instructional staff whose credentials were not properly vetted”, the GAC noted in some of its findings.

The GAC report also stated “Additionally, there is no strategy put in place by the administration to encourage staff retention. As a result, 62 percent of the University’s instructional staffs are hired on a part-time basis and are also recruited on a non-competitive basis. Furthermore, the University has not put in place mechanism to monitor and evaluate its instructional staff and the University also lacks an effective Management Information System for gathering and safe guarding records”.

The audit revealed that the following major deficiencies in staffing regulations, relative to the provision of quality teaching services at the University Of the Audit revealed the following major deficiencies in staffing regulations, relative to the provision of quality teaching services at the University of Liberia (UL): Article IV, Section 2 of the University’s Handbook of Regulations (Appendix D) states the requirements for the qualification to the rank of faculty and its exemption.

Despite the requirements of Section 2, auditors noted that there were instances where Bachelor Degree holders without the requisite experience and formal training in the educational field were recruited to handle courses above freshman level, which is a direct contravention of the University’s recruitment policy.

Article III, Section 1 of the Handbook states the procedures for the recruitment of instructional staff as follows: “the Dean of the University, Dean of Colleges, Directors of school, Comptroller’s office and other officers of administration and instructions shall be nominated by the President of the University for Approval by the Board of Trustees”.

The policy also states that all employees of the University shall be appointed by the President of the University” but the GAC stated that contrary to the above, a review of the files of part time instructional staff showed that 84 out of 566 staff was appointed without the approval of the President of the University and the Board of Trustees.