Published: September 27, 2026
MONROVIA – Liberian girls now enroll in school at near parity with boys, but about 36.4% of them drop out.
The ministry cited its latest Annual School Census for the girls’ dropout rate in written responses to questions from this reporter.
By Garmah Lomo
“The Ministry’s ambition is clear: we do not want merely to count girls when they enroll; we want to see them remain in school, learn, progress, and complete,” the ministry said.
D. Eunice Williams, the ministry’s director of girls’ education, said the ministry considers the rise in girls’ enrollment and near gender parity an important national achievement but regards getting girls into school as only the first step. She said the ministry is deliberately moving beyond an access-only approach to one that also covers retention, learning, protection, health, progression and completion.
Girls now account for about 50.3% of learners, yet nearly 42% of primary-school-age girls do not complete sixth grade, figures this reporter put to the ministry and that it did not dispute.
Asked how many girls leave school because of poverty, teenage pregnancy, early marriage, distance, domestic responsibilities and unsafe schools, and which interventions have measurably reduced each, the ministry gave no statistics. It said those causes are interconnected and extend beyond the education sector, and that it is strengthening monitoring “so dropout can increasingly be understood by county, grade, sex, age, and documented reason.”
A UNICEF situation analysis of adolescent girls in Liberia, dated March 2026, found about 36% of children ages 3 to 18 out of school, with girls particularly affected by dropout and learning disruptions. It named gender-based violence, early pregnancy and marriage, poor access to sexual and reproductive health services, school exclusion, inadequate menstrual hygiene facilities, malnutrition and climate change among the main barriers, and called for a multisectoral approach centered on violence prevention and response, sexual and reproductive health and rights, inclusive education, food security and nutrition, and climate resilience.
To bring back girls who have already left, the ministry pointed to its Back to My Classroom campaign, which it said identifies and encourages out-of-school children to return, and to a memorandum of understanding it recently signed with BRAC Liberia under the Accelerating Impact for Young Women project to help girls re-enroll. The project’s education pathway aims to increase access to and completion of secondary education in grades 7 through 12 from 2026 to 2033, reaching about 300 schools in Montserrado, Grand Bassa, Grand Gedeh, Bong, Nimba, Lofa and Margibi counties, and includes financial support to address barriers to education in selected schools.
For girls still in class, the ministry said it has strengthened guidance and counseling in public senior high schools, with support extending to lower basic levels, and that sanitary materials and hygiene support address barriers to girls’ regular attendance. With UNFPA, it installed pad dispensers in about 120 schools in three counties it did not name, and a national hygiene-kit initiative targets 10,000 learners, 5,000 girls and 5,000 boys. The girls’ education division’s fiscal 2025 funding, US$100,000, went to hygiene kits, the ministry said.
Williams described the Liberia EXCEL Project, a US$88.7 million investment supported by the World Bank and the Global Partnership for Education, as a major pillar of the effort to close the completion gap. She said the project is strengthening foundational learning and equitable access in 2,337 public primary schools across all 15 counties and reaching about 350,000 learners. The project serves boys and girls; about 48% of its direct beneficiaries are expected to be female.
Asked which programs have measurably improved girls’ enrollment, retention and completion, the ministry cited no outcome data. It said the strongest evidence is not the number of activities or beneficiaries: “The real question is whether these investments are contributing to improved attendance, retention, progression, learning and completion.” It said it is still linking program monitoring to the national education information system.
The ministry also gave no numbers when asked how many rural girls have benefited from support targeting poverty, distance, teenage pregnancy, inadequate toilets and the shortage of female teachers. It said it aims to report not just how many beneficiaries its programs reach but where they are, what barriers they face and whether the support improved their attendance, retention, progression and completion. The availability of female teachers “remains an important consideration for girls’ education, particularly at lower levels,” it said.
“National progress in girls’ education must reach the girl in the most remote community with the same determination as the girl in Monrovia,” the ministry said.
Educate HER Liberia, a coalition of about 30 civil society, media and community organizations led by Executive Director Alfreda Foboi Nmah, advocates for implementation of the National Policy on Girls’ Education, tracks education outcomes and presses the government to account for them. Working with the ministry’s girls’ education division, the coalition supports annual policy dialogues in all 15 counties and recently launched Liberia’s first Girls’ Education Scorecard, which the ministry described as an accountability and monitoring tool.
This story was produced in collaboration with the Merck Foundation in support of girls’ education.
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