Liberia’s Plan for Digital and Inclusive Education

1. Could you take us through your journey in education, ICT and technology, and the experiences that eventually led to your appointment as Assistant Minister at Liberia’s Ministry of Education?

My work has always sat at the intersection of technology and human capacity. Over more than two decades in ICT and education, I have moved from the technical side of the work, building and supporting the systems that make modern learning possible, into the policy conversations about how those systems reach every learner. That journey has taken me into classrooms in all 15 counties of Liberia, into continental platforms including the UNESCO and African Union Commission Continental Conference, the mEducation Alliance Symposium, and the World Digital Education Conference, and into partnerships with the private sector, with civil society, and with communities themselves. What my appointment at the Ministry of Education allows me to do now is bring that experience to bear on policy. The challenge in Liberia is not whether technology belongs in education. That question has been settled by our young people, who are already engaging digitally in their daily lives. The challenge is how we build an education system that places every one of them, including those in rural areas and those with special needs, inside that reality rather than outside it. That is what my work at the Ministry is about.

ADVERTISEMENT

2. You have worked in ICT and education for more than two decades. How has your experience in Edu-Tech shaped your approach to policymaking and educational development in Liberia?

Twenty years in Edu-Tech teaches you that technology on its own is not the point. The point is what a teacher can do with it on a Monday morning, in a classroom with limited connectivity and a full timetable, to help the learners in front of her. My experience has shaped a policymaking approach that starts from the realities of the classroom and works outward. If a tool cannot survive an unreliable electricity supply, intermittent internet, and the ordinary pressures of teaching, then it is not a tool for the Liberian education system. That is why Liberia is designing its digital education architecture to be offline-capable from the outset, so that teachers and learners are not stranded when connectivity is intermittent. It is also why the Ministry has placed teachers at the centre of our digital education work rather than treating them as end-users of someone else’s design. Our Strengthening Teachers’ Digital Skills Project, which trained its inaugural cohort of fifty teachers earlier this year, uses the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework to position digital capacity as a core teaching competency alongside subject knowledge and pedagogy. That reorientation, from the device to the teacher, is the lesson I have carried from the field into the Ministry.

3. As Assistant Minister responsible for Technical and Vocational Education and Training, STEM and Inclusive Education, what are the major priorities of your office, and what specific outcomes are you seeking to achieve?

The portfolio brings together three closely connected priorities. The first is STEM, where we are building hands-on capacity rather than theoretical exposure. The Ministry has already equipped twenty-eight senior high schools with science laboratories, and we are targeting a further fifty, alongside the national distribution of hands-on teacher manuals that help educators move from abstract explanation to direct experimentation. The second is TVET, which we are repositioning as a serious pathway to economic survival rather than a fallback for learners who leave the academic track. The Youth Rising Programme is the framework we are using to align vocational training with the actual demands of Liberia’s labour market, working with local industry and with partners including UNESCO-UNEVOC. The third is Special and Inclusive Education, where we are working to ensure that children and young people with disabilities, girls in STEM and TVET, and learners in rural and historically underserved communities are inside the national education reform rather than at its margins. The outcome I am seeking across all three is a Liberian education system that prepares every learner, in every county, for the economy and the society they are entering.

ADVERTISEMENT

4. Liberia, like many African countries, is seeking to equip young people with skills that match the demands of a changing labour market. How is the Ministry strengthening TVET to make it more responsive to industry and employment opportunities?

TVET in Liberia has historically carried a reputation problem as much as a quality problem. The Ministry’s work is addressing both. On the quality side, we are driving research into local industries to identify the specific skills shortfalls holding back national growth, and we are redesigning TVET curricula so that training programmes target those shortfalls directly. The Youth Rising Programme sits at the centre of this work, pairing curriculum reform with structured partnerships between vocational institutions, government bodies, local business leaders, and international development agencies including UNESCO-UNEVOC. On the reputation side, we are working to reposition TVET in the public imagination as a credible route to employment and entrepreneurship. That includes active advocacy for the visibility and participation of young women in technical and scientific fields, which is an area where the sector has historically underperformed. The outcome we are working toward is a TVET system that private sector employers can rely on as a source of skilled technicians, that government can rely on as a driver of national development, and that young Liberians themselves see as a path worth choosing.

5. Digital literacy and technology are increasingly becoming part of basic education. What is Liberia doing to ensure that students, particularly those in public schools and underserved communities, have meaningful access to digital learning?

Meaningful access to digital learning in Liberia depends on three things working together: infrastructure that reaches the learner, teachers who are confident using it, and content that is relevant to the Liberian curriculum. The Ministry is building all three in parallel. On infrastructure, Liberia is designing its digital learning architecture to be offline-capable, so that content remains available in schools where connectivity is intermittent or unreliable. On teacher capacity, the Strengthening Teachers’ Digital Skills Project is upskilling teachers in digital pedagogy using the TPACK framework, with the first cohort already completing training and further cohorts planned. On content, we are working to ensure that the resources distributed through our platforms are aligned with the national curriculum, including newly approved materials for learners with special educational needs. Liberia also benefits from being part of a growing continental movement around digital public infrastructure for education. As a Founding Luminary of Mwanga wa Elimu, I have seen first-hand how the movement supports countries like Liberia with capacity building, policy domestication, and the lighter but essential aspects of the digital public infrastructure journey. That continental coordination, anchored in the AUDA-NEPAD Africa EdTech 2030 Vision and Plan, creates the policy conditions and the shared standards that let national systems like Liberia’s go further than they could alone.

6. You have spoken about integrating digital literacy and numeracy applications into the curriculum for pupils in Grades 1 to 6. What impact do you expect this approach to have on teaching, learning and parental engagement?

The impact we are aiming for begins in the classroom and reaches outward from there. For teaching, the integration of digital literacy and numeracy applications gives teachers additional ways to make foundational concepts visible and practical to young learners. A Grade 2 pupil working through an interactive numeracy exercise is building the same skills they would build through a textbook, but the engagement, the feedback loop, and the ability to practise independently are often stronger. For learning, this matters because the foundational years are where literacy and numeracy gaps either close or widen for the rest of a learner’s education. The EXCEL Project, an $88.7 million foundational-education investment launched by President Boakai in mid-2025, is targeting 350,000 students in the final year of early childhood education and Grades 1 to 6 with improved literacy and numeracy materials, alongside training for 12,000 teachers and principals. For parental engagement, digital tools create a new kind of visibility into what children are learning. A parent who can see their child’s progress on a tablet is more likely to engage with their child’s education than a parent who waits for a report card at the end of term. That shift is as consequential as the pedagogy itself.

7. STEM education is central to preparing young Africans for the future. What are the biggest challenges limiting STEM participation among Liberian students, and what strategies is the Ministry using to address them?

The challenges fall into three categories. The first is infrastructure. For many years, Liberian secondary school students studied science without ever conducting an experiment, because the laboratories simply did not exist. The Ministry has addressed this directly, equipping twenty-eight senior high schools with science laboratories to date and targeting a further fifty, with locally sourced hands-on materials where imported equipment is not viable. The second is teacher capacity. Science teaching in Liberia has often defaulted to abstract explanation because teachers themselves have not had access to the materials, the training, or the reference tools to teach practically. The national distribution of hands-on teacher manuals is directly addressing this gap, giving teachers the structured support to run experimental lessons. The third is participation, particularly among young women. STEM in Liberia has historically been male-dominated, and the Ministry is working actively to change that through advocacy, visibility, and structured encouragement of female participation in STEM pathways from the secondary level upward. These challenges are shared across much of Africa, and Liberia’s STEM strategy is being developed with an awareness of what works elsewhere on the continent.

8. Inclusive education is another important part of your portfolio. How is the Ministry working to ensure that children and young people with disabilities are not left behind in Liberia’s education system?

Inclusive education in Liberia has moved from aspiration to policy and, increasingly, to delivery. The Ministry’s approach rests on the principle that no Liberian learner, including those with special needs or in rural areas, should be left outside the national education system. Our digital learning architecture now carries newly approved resources designed specifically for learners with special educational needs, delivered through an offline-capable system that allows teachers in rural counties to access the same materials as teachers in Monrovia, with or without a reliable internet connection. The deployment of trained female guidance counsellors nationwide has strengthened the pastoral support available to vulnerable learners, including girls at risk of leaving school. The Ministry’s partnership with the Global Partnership for Education, the World Bank, UNICEF, the European Union, and civil society organisations is aligned around a single national reform agenda that prioritises the most marginalised learners rather than treating inclusion as a separate workstream. We also benchmark Liberia’s special education policies against global digital standards through platforms including the World Digital Education Conference and the Gateways to Public Learning initiative, to make sure that our frameworks are keeping pace with international practice.

9. From your perspective, what are the most pressing challenges currently facing Liberia’s education sector, and which reforms do you believe require the greatest attention in the coming years?

The most pressing challenge is foundational learning. Too many Liberian children are completing their primary years without the literacy and numeracy foundations they will need for everything that follows. The EXCEL Project, which Minister Jallah secured with Presidential backing, is the Ministry’s primary response, and its 350,000-student target reflects the scale of the challenge. A second pressing challenge is teacher workforce development, both in supply (we need more trained teachers in every subject, especially STEM and TVET) and in support (teachers need the training, materials, and digital tools to teach effectively in modern classrooms). The reactivation of the Rural Teacher Training Institutes with an extended one-year enhancement training programme is part of our response. A third challenge is accountability. Minister Jallah has designated 2026 the “Year of Accountability” precisely because we need our reforms, our donor-funded initiatives, and our data systems to produce measurable, verifiable results for learners. The completion of the first Annual School Census in four years, covering 6,394 schools, has restored the evidence base we need to plan and allocate resources with confidence. The next few years will be about turning that evidence into outcomes.

10. Looking beyond Liberia, what lessons do you think other African countries can learn from Liberia’s experience in combining education, technology, TVET, STEM and inclusive education to prepare young people for the future?

Three lessons stand out. The first is to begin with the realities of the classroom. Liberia’s digital education strategy is built around offline-first infrastructure, teacher digital capacity, and locally sourced materials because those are what work in a Liberian classroom. The temptation across much of the continent has been to begin with the technology and ask the classroom to adapt. We have found that reversing that order produces more durable outcomes. The second is to align national reform with continental coordination. Liberia’s work on digital education is deliberately aligned with the AUDA-NEPAD Africa EdTech 2030 Vision and Plan, and we draw on continental platforms including Mwanga wa Elimu, the movement I am proud to serve as a Founding Luminary, for policy exchange, capacity building, and support with the policy domestication work that national digital transformation requires. No African country can build a modern digital education system alone, and the countries that will succeed are the ones that treat continental coordination as a strength rather than as a constraint. The third is to resist the fragmentation of initiatives. Liberia’s Ministry has worked actively over the past two years to bring donor-funded initiatives, partner programmes, and national priorities under a single harmonised reform agenda. That coordination is as important as any individual programme. For other African countries considering their own digital education journeys, the Liberian experience suggests that infrastructure, teachers, and coordination are the three legs of the stool. All three have to be built together.

HON. NATHANIEL K. CISCO, JR.

Assistant Minister for Science, Technology, Vocational, Special, and Inclusive Education Ministry of Education, Republic of Liberia Hon. Nathaniel K. Cisco, Jr. is a dedicated Liberian educator, ICT professional, and senior policymaker with over 20 years of experience working at the intersection of technology and human capacity development. As Assistant Minister for Science, Technology, Vocational, Special, and Inclusive Education at the Ministry of Education in Liberia, he spearheads national eorts to build an equitable, adaptive, and 21st-century education ecosystem. Minister Cisco’s leadership centers on a holistic vision: aligning education with market demands while ensuring that no Liberian learner — including those in rural areas or with special needs — is le behind. SPEARHEADING STEM AND DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION With a rich background in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Minister Cisco champions the integration of technology and practical science into classrooms nationwide: • Hands-on STEM Integration: He has actively led the national distribution of science lab equipment and hands-on teacher manuals, an initiative that transitions Liberian schools from abstract theory to direct experimentation and problem￾solving. • National Curricula Advocacy: At major international platforms, including the mEducation Alliance Symposium and the UNESCO/ African Union Commission Continental Conference, he has delivered keynotes on embedding STEM into national curricula using aordable and locally sourced materials. • EdTech and Teacher Capacity: He is a key driver of Project RESPECT, a groundbreaking digital literacy partnership with Spix Foundation America that transforms teachers into agents of innovation across all 15 counties by equipping them with scalable, African-led classroom solutions. ADVANCING SPECIAL AND INCLUSIVE EDUCATION Believing that true educational reform must be systematically inclusive, Minister Cisco has institutionalized practices designed to support vulnerable and diverse student demographics: • Rural and Special Demographics Access: rough initiatives like Project RESPECT, he prioritizes the delivery of scalable digital solutions specically tailored for rural schools and historically underserved communities. • Gender Inclusion in STEM and TVET: Minister Cisco actively combats gender disparities by advocating for the inclusion of young women in technical and scientic elds, frequently collaborating with institutions to ensure that technical and professional training tracks have vibrant, highly visible female participation. • Global Best Practices Benchmarking: Representing Liberia at the World Digital Education Conference (WDEC) and the Gateways to Public Learning initiative, he aligns Liberia’s special education policies with global digital standards to build resilient and equitable education frameworks. ELEVATING TVET AND INDUSTRY ALIGNMENT Minister Cisco has played a vital role in dismantling negative perceptions of vocational tracks by positioning Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) as a driver of economic survival: • e Youth Rising Program: He has been instrumental in implementing this core framework to remodel vocational training, ensuring that curriculum design directly reects current labor market and private sector demands. • School-Industry Collaboration: He bridges the gap between public policy and the private sector by engineering robust partnerships among government bodies, local business leaders, and international development agencies such as UNESCO-UNEVOC. • Skills Gap Research: By driving research into local industries, he ensures that resource distribution and training programs target the specic skills shortfalls holding back national growth. Ministry of Education — Republic of Liberia