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This classroom in city of Buchanan is empty again

Children in Liberia are getting used to being out of school again.��

Their classrooms were closed for six months at the height of the Ebola outbreak that killed more than 11,000 people in three countries.

But the and more than one million students started to trickle back �鶹APP� lining up to have their temperatures taken and washing their hands in chlorine in the new post-Ebola era.

They had been told classes would be open for the next eight months to make up for lost time. However, the Liberian government changed its mind and the schools shut down again last week until September.

Liberian primary school children in Monrovia wait to wash their hands Picture: UNICEF/Irwin

Conference Harmon, a grade 11 student in the capital Monrovia, : �鶹APP�This is a serious nightmare. How can the government do this? Just imagine, I have paid my entire school fees [for the year] and now the government says schools should close. I am not happy about this.�鶹APP�

Education Minister George Werner had warned in June that the academic calendar would be reset to prepare for next year. He said keeping schools open carried �鶹APP�the risk that desired learning outcomes in future years [would be] lowered irrecoverably, to cater to the short-term learning deficit�鶹APP�.

But students, parents and teachers were angry at the move. Days after the announcement, protesting students��lay down on the road and blocked a motorcade carrying President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Mr Werner has admitted that �鶹APP�education in our country is a mess�鶹APP�. He added: �鶹APP�In some places, the education system has collapsed but I am not willing to put off the hard decisions, to just sit at my desk and watch the problems become ever more entrenched.�鶹APP�

Children had been back at schools, like Slipway Primary in Monrovia Picture: UNICEF/Irwin

The government said all students �鶹APP� except those in grade 9 and 12 taking placement exams �鶹APP� will be eligible to be promoted to the following grade at the start of the next school year.

But there are concerns over doing this when some students have been back at school while others haven�鶹APP�t yet returned.

When the schools reopened in February, many had not had their textbooks delivered. The United Nations children�鶹APP�s agency stepped in to supply 700,000 learning and teaching kits to 4460 schools �鶹APP� they included notebooks, pencils and school bags for students and lesson plans for teachers.

Liberia is spending $80 million to build 47 new schools �鶹APP� 27 of them already completed �鶹APP� train teachers, construct teachers�鶹APP� quarters and science labs and on other education projects.