The World Bank on Friday offered to finance the improvement of secondary education in Liberia, with a grant of 43 million dollars.

The grant was offered as part of the World Bank’s support to the government-proposed “Improving Results In Secondary Education (IRISE)” project.

The project takes a system-based approach to addressing some foundational issues and challenges facing the secondary-level education in the West African country.

The grant will focus on improving the quality of secondary education services, especially for adolescent girls.

At a signing ceremony in Monrovia, the World Bank’s country director Pierre Laporte said the IRISE project was important because it would contribute to improving Liberia’s human capital base and be critical to the development of the country.

According to Laporte, secondary education not only enables individuals to further enhance their learning, but it also makes them more productive and increases more qualified labour to better meet the growing needs of the modern-day labor market.

He said the World Bank funded the project to further provide the foundation to enable young people to further their professional careers in life.

Liberia’s education minister Ansu Sonii, who signed the agreement on behalf of the government, said the grant would bring about transformation to the country’s education sector.

With the grant, Sonii noted, over 3,000 girls from grades 9-12 will have the opportunity to remain in school.