Correction summary:
We have updated this report to reflect new evidence that we have obtained. This means the verdict has been changed from “unproven” to “Correct”. Please note that we have a “Correction Policy” which mandates us to make corrections when necessary. For more on our correction policy follow this link: https://localvoicesliberia.com/correction-policy/
Gbarpolu County Senator, Amara Konneh has claimed that his County has the lowest girls’ high school graduation rate in Liberia.
Mr. Konneh indicated that girls’ high school graduation rate in his county “remains a dismal 2%”. He made the statement on Facebook on May 9 after touring several institutions in the county to acquaint himself with their challenges.
Created in 2003, Gbarpolu is the youngest of the 15 counties of Liberia.
The Claim
Senator Konneh’s post excerpt reads: “Girls’ high school graduation rate remains a dismal 2%, nevertheless, one of the lowest in the country.”
Rating Justification
To verify the claim, we emailed Senator Konneh’s office about the source of his claim, but his office, through his Chief of Office Staff did not provide any response to our emails following several phone calls.
We promised to update our report once we got response from Mr. Konneh about the source of information he relied upon to make his claim.
We then searched for relevant data on the websites of credible sources like UNESCO, Unicef, Word Bank and the Ministry of Education to verify the Senator’s statement bu did not find any information.
We further checked various online news sources for any publications that rated the girls’ high school graduation rate in the county at 2%. Again, no such information was found.
A continuous search led us to the discovery of a 2010 report by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, which mentioned that at Bopolu Central High School, out of 24 seniors expected to graduate, eight were girls, which calculates to approximately 2%.
It is important to note that the data from the 2010 report pertained only to one school and cannot accurately represent the current situation across the entire county.
Meanwhile, in 2017, the World Bank and UNESCO rated the overall secondary school completion rate for girls in Liberia at 42%.
Following the publication of our previous report, we were informed that the lawmaker relied on the 2019-2020 demographic and health survey report published by the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS) in April 2021.
Conclusion
Based on new evidence we have obtained, we conclude that Senator Konneh’s claim about girls’ high school graduation rate in Gbarpolu County being 2% is correct. The LIGIS data obtained following the publication of the previous report suggest that we change our previous verdict.
Editor’s Note: We have updated this report to reflect new evidence that we have obtained. This means the verdict has been changed from “unproven” to “Correct”. Please note that we have a “Correction Policy” which mandates us to make corrections when necessary. For more on our correction policy follow this link: https://localvoicesliberia.com/correction-policy/
This report is produced with funding from the USAID Media Activity. The funder has No say in the editorial decisions leading to the production of this content
