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No Debate: IRISE Secondary School Project Began and Finished Under Weah, Says Ex-Deputy Minister Kessely

  • Writer: Michael T
    Michael T
  • Jul 21
  • 3 min read
Former Deputy Minister Alton Kessely
Former Deputy Minister Alton Kessely

Former Liberian Deputy Minister for Planning, Research, and Development, Alton Kessely, has publicly challenged the origins and execution of Liberia’s landmark Improving Results in Secondary Education (IRISE) Project. Kessely, who directly headed and was deeply involved with details of the project, insists that IRISE was conceived, launched, and delivered exclusively under President George Weah’s administration—and dares anyone to prove otherwise.


Kessely acknowledges that, before 2018, there were discussions about education reforms under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Most notably, then-Education Minister George Werner proposed the Partnership Schools for Liberia (PSL) initiative. This program, which started in 2016, focused on outsourcing the management of a limited number of primary schools to private and NGO operators, aiming to improve performance through a public-private partnership. The PSL initiative saw experimental reform but was distinct from—and did not lead directly to—the kind of senior secondary education improvements that IRISE would later target. Furthermore, requests to allocate $25 million from World Bank funds for PSL never materialized into funded secondary education projects or formalized large-scale secondary reforms[1][2][3].


During this period, Liberia’s education sector was guided by the “Getting to Best” Education Sector Plan (2017–2021), which prioritized a number of reforms. However, none of these plans resulted in concrete World Bank-supported secondary education projects of IRISE’s scale prior to 2018[4][5].


According to Kessely, and as documented in grant and project records, the real shift occurred with the World Bank’s launch of the Human Capital Project in 2018. This policy emphasized human investment, especially in education, across the globe, opening the door for significant grant-based interventions in countries like Liberia. Taking advantage of this policy shift, the Liberian Ministry of Education, under Kessely’s leadership, assembled a project team that identified, prepared, and negotiated the multi-year IRISE initiative.


“If anyone claims the IRISE project started under the Sirleaf administration, let them produce a document to prove it.” He firmly states that the team he led took the project “from inception to implementation”. Only after the 2018 policy change and that the Weah government deliver both the vision and the results.


“All significant progress on IRISE began after 2018,” he continued. Previous efforts, including PSL, were focused on primary education and never reached the scale, funding, or formalization needed for comprehensive secondary reform. The World Bank records, project timelines, and Ministry of Education manuals all anchor the IRISE project’s origins and completion squarely with the Weah administration[6][7][8]. It is important to note that there was a two-year extension, hence the project ending in 2025.


Kessely stressed that there is no room for debate—IRISE’s conception, funding, and delivery belong to the Weah administration. And stands firm by his record and challenges others to bring forward any credible evidence to the contrary.


Key sources corroborating these details include the official IRISE Grant Manual, World Bank project statements, and independent reports on Liberia’s education policy and funding history.[6][7][8][9][1]



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Additional Sources


[1] [PDF] partnership-schools-for-liberia.pdf - Innovations for Poverty Action https://poverty-action.org/sites/default/files/publications/partnership-schools-for-liberia.pdf

[2] [PDF] Partnership Schools for Liberia: a critical review - Ei-ie https://download.ei-ie.org/Docs/WebDepot/LIBERIA18julyv7.pdf

[8] LIBERIA’S US$47 MILLION WORLD BANK-FUNDED IRISE PROJECT DELIVERS NEW SECONDARY SCHOOLS FOR RURAL STUDENTS - Smart News Liberia https://smartnewsliberia.com/liberias-us47-million-world-bank-funded-irise-project-delivers-new-secondary-schools-for-rural-students/

[12] Improving Results in Secondary Education (IRISE) https://liberiaprojects.org/activities/1168

[13] Improving Results In Secondary Education (IRISE) https://opendeved.net/programmes/irise/

[14] Improving Results in Secondary Education (IRISE) - World Bank https://projects.worldbank.org/pt/projects-operations/procurement-detail/OP00234243

[16] Improving Results in Secondary Education (IRISE) - World Bank https://projects.worldbank.org/en/projects-operations/procurement-detail/OP00179728

[19] [PDF] Republic of Liberia Ministry of Education EDUCATION SECTOR ... https://planipolis.iiep.unesco.org/sites/default/files/ressources/liberia_esp_2022.pdf


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