TU Students Angrily Extend Protest From Harper To Pleebo In Demand Of President Removal

By: E. Varney Kamah, GNN Correspondent In Maryland County*

Hundreds of students of the William V. S. Tubman University in Harper, Maryland County in continuation of their protest demanding the immediate resignation of the President of the University, Dr. Elliot Wreh Wilson have angrily extended their protest to the commercial city of Pleebo, ordering the closure of all high schools in the city and its environs.

According to our Correspondent in the County, the students who relaxed their protest yesterday, March 15, 2022 due to the birth anniversary of Liberia’s founding President, Joseph Jenkins Roberts took the streets of Pleebo, while others continue in Harper angrily calling for the removal of the University President who they alleged have mismanaged the affairs of the University.

The students in collaboration with the Tubman University Faculty Association  (TUFA) over the past weeks have abandoned classes in demand of several Counts including the removal the University President, Dr. Elliot Wreh Wilson, with the students chanting in their numbers, “ We want to go back to school since February 26, our instructional staff  have faculty  stopped teaching us, a situation that has dragged us down in pursuit of education”,  the students in their slogans noted.

It can be recorded last year about this same time the students of Tubman University protested for the removal of Tubman University President their President, Dr. Elliot W. Wilson during the visit of President George Weah.

Several Citizens in Maryland County expressed their dissatisfaction concerning the current situation in the County concerning the closing down of grade Schools  while students taking their 3rdperiod  exam test.

“This whole situation is not for grade school students it is to our supprised seeing the Students of Tubman University coming to Pleebo sending students home who are taking their test, therefore, let Government act so that the protest of the students can’t go out of hand.

Williams V.S Tubman University is the second state owned University in Liberia and the highest learning Institution in the Southeastern part of Liberia Founded in 1978 as the William V. S. Tubman College of Technology, the school originally offered Tubman was also one of the main schools in Liberia to produce secondary school teachers. In 1990, the college was accredited to offer Bachelor of  Science degrees in those fields, but soon closed following the outbreak of the First Liberian Civil War. The school remained closed through the 1990s and the end of the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. Enrollment numbers show 264 students and a faculty of 28 in 1999.

In 2008, the college was reopened by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, with Dr. Elizabeth Davis-Russell appointed that year as the first female president of the university. In April 2009, Sirleaf signed a bill elevating Tubman to university status, and the newly renamed and renovated university opened on 14 September 2009. The school’s enrollment stood at 288 at that time, of which 219 were male and 69 were female.  Enrollment stood at 838 for the first semester of the 2013-14 school year, and the school held its first commencement in June 2014. William V. S. Tubman University is proud of its graduating class of nursing students who experienced a 100% pass-rate on the State Board of Nursing examinations. The nation’s first female mechanical engineer graduated from William V. S. Tubman University in 2016.