Liberia: 1,500 Pupils, Too Few Chairs as Gbarnga Public School Struggles With Overcrowding

GBARNGA, Bong County, Oct. 8 -- The competition starts before the first lesson. Pupils arriving each morning at Chief Compound Public School look first for somewhere to sit: a chair, a gap on a broken bench, anything. Those who come after the seats are gone have one option. The floor.

By Selma Lomax| [e-mail]

The school, which enrolls more than 1,500 pupils, is not in a remote village beyond the reach of government. It stands in Gbarnga, the administrative and political capital of Bong County, within easy reach of the government offices and education authorities charged with the welfare of the county's children.

Inside some classrooms, children sit for hours on bare concrete, balancing exercise books on the...