800 Unpaid UL Lecturers Pead With Pres. Boakai -‘Adjunct Lecturers Aren’t Slaves; We Are Scholars,” They Cry Out

MONROVIA – There is no better way the farce of change, progress and claim of doing better naturally can be unmasked in a country such as Liberia than when stewards in critical service delivery, such as education, health, transportation, water and electricity openly weeps for facing harsh conditions, the worse of all not being paid regularly and for months. The chicks have come to roast with the “Rescue Government”, as workers of these critical sectors continue to beg and protests. Here come 800 adjunct lecturers of the nation’s biggest academic referrer institution, state-owned University of Liberia, on their knees before the “Rescue Father”, President Joseph Boakai, begging for their three unpaid months in salaries. The Analyst reports.

More than 800 adjunct lecturers of the University of Liberia are pleading with the President of Liberia to make way so that they receive three months of service rendered to Liberia’s future leaders and the entire nation at large.

In a letter to President Boakai, a copy obtained by The Analyst, the teachers wrote: “We write to you with heavy hearts and weary spirits—not as agitators, but as educators, patriots, and custodians of Liberia’s intellectual future. For over three months, more than 800 adjunct lecturers of the University of Liberia have rendered unwavering service to this nation’s youth without receiving a single cent in compensation. This is not merely an administrative oversight; it is a profound injustice.”

Since May 2025, the 800 adjunct lecturers said they taught, mentored, and assessed thousands of students; they have traversed great distances, especially to the Fendell campus, often at their own expense, and frequently on foot, due to the inability to afford transportation. They had to use their meager resources to print exams, facilitate learning, and uphold the academic integrity of the institution. Some of us have transferred these burdens to students, not out of choice, but out of incapacity.

“Yet, after the semester’s end, our sacrifices are met not with gratitude, but with silence,” they said in the letter released to the media. “The administration under Dr. Layli Maparyan has failed to provide a transparent plan or timeline for payment. This persistent neglect is not only demoralizing but also dehumanizing.”

The UL lecturers asserted that “We are not beggars. We are professionals. We are the very foundation upon which the University of Liberia stands.”

According to them, the institution lacks the capacity to sustain a full-time faculty, “and it is we, the adjunct lecturers, who shoulder the academic load. And yet, we are treated as expendable laborers, as if our contributions are invisible.”

“This is a grotesque distortion of justice,” they alarmed. “We have families to feed, children whose school fees must be paid, and lives burdened by the same economic pressures faced by Dr. Maparyan and her well-compensated administration. The disparity between our treatment and theirs is a glaring indictment of a broken system.”

Even more troubling is the fact that the university owes not only current salaries but also previous arrears, thereby creating a pattern of financial delinquency that borders on institutional malpractice, the lecturers 800 in number said unanimously. “And now, as the next semester looms in this August 2025, we are expected to resume duties without redress, without dignity, and without pay.”

“This is not sustainable. This is not acceptable. This is not humane,” they continued, with a passionate appeal “to you, Mr. President, with utmost urgency and moral conviction, to intervene.”

“Mandate the immediate payment of all outstanding salaries and arrears owed to adjunct lecturers,” the UL teachers said, adding, “Commission an independent audit of the University of Liberia’s financial systems and payroll records submitted to the Ministry of Finance. Establish permanent reforms to ensure that no educator in Liberia is ever subjected to such humiliation again.”

The lecturers called on the president to institute systematic oversight and control mechanisms to restore accountability and transparency at the University of Liberia.

“If our plight is not addressed within one week,” they warned, “we shall be compelled to abort the commencement of the first trimester of the 2025–2026 academic year. We shall also initiate other indiscriminate actions to assert our rights and reclaim our dignity.

“We do not wish to disrupt the academic calendar. We do not wish to deprive students of their education. But we cannot continue to serve a system that treats us as disposable.”

Concluding their communication to the Liberian Chief Executive, they noted: “Adjunct lecturers are not slaves. We are scholars. We are mentors. We are nation-builders.”

“Your Excellency, we trust in your leadership. We implore you to act, not tomorrow, not next month, but now!” the lecturers said.