The Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) has inaugurated a new non-commissioned officers training academy as part of an effort to develop career paths for noncommissioned officers.
This is part of the country’s overall initiative to rebuild its forces in the wake of the country’s devastating civil war, which ended in 2003.
In mid-December 2024, 40 students completed a nine-week pilot course at the newly established Noncommissioned Officer Academy at the AFL’s Armed Forces Training Center at Camp Ware, Liberia. Each branch of the AFL was represented, and three female NCOs were among the graduates.
“I cannot overemphasize the importance of professional education in the military,” the AFL’s Command Sgt. Maj. Plazian B. Kuoh, senior enlisted advisor at the Armed Forces Training Center, told ADF. “It is the function and responsibility of every commander to lead, develop and achieve. To achieve such, you need institutions like the NCO Academy that will train and educate the majority of the forces, especially when it comes to NCO education.”
AFL Command Sgt. Maj. Williams F. Tabolo, who participated in the inaugural course, said it is the first of many to come.
“Our international partner, the Michigan National Guard’s Regional Training Team, supported us in the process [of establishing the academy], starting with validating instructors before the course, up to monitoring the course during its conduct and conducting an after action review with the students and instructors,” Tabolo told ADF. “They also awarded meritorious performances.”
NCOs play important roles in the military. They hone the effectiveness and readiness of a unit by training and leading Soldiers and teams. They also enforce the military’s established policies and develop working relationships with commissioned officers.
“I believe NCOs can play an important role in offering Soldiers career training and improving professionalism, because they have the exact experience and understand the applicable teaching methodology,” Kuoh said.
The pilot course focused on readiness, leadership, training management, communications, operations and program management. It was designed to “build basic leader and trainer skills needed to lead a team-size element, while providing the foundation for further development along the professional military education learning curriculum,” Kuoh said. “Soldier lethality spans all fundamentals: shooting, moving and communication, protecting, sustaining, and training.”
Kuoh said the course also involved sharing experiences between students and instructors and was especially helpful in helping him learn to identify areas that need improvement. Kuoh said he believes more NCO academies and a professional military school system are needed on the continent.
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Ravindra Wagh, assistant adjutant general for the Michigan National Guard, visited the NCO course in early December.
“Other than the Liberian flag on their shoulders, if you put these soldiers in a classroom next to their U.S. counterparts, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference,” Wagh said in a story on the U.S. Army’s website. “What I see here is the same professionalism I would expect to see in a U.S. Army enlisted development course.”
Wagh served in Liberia from 2014 to 2015 as a mentor attached to the AFL’s 23rd Infantry Brigade during Operation Onward Liberty, a U.S. Africa Command-sponsored contribution to Liberia’s security sector reform supported by the Michigan National Guard.
Although the Michigan National Guard’s 177th Regional Training Institute and the U.S. Army NCO Leadership Center of Excellence helped develop the NCO Academy’s curriculum, Wagh said credit for establishing Liberia’s NCO Academy rests solely with the AFL.
“This academy is the latest chapter in the AFL’s remarkable story,” Wagh said. “In less than 20 years, the AFL has matured from a newly rebuilt military to developing its own NCO corps through a self-sufficient professional military education program.”
Meanwhile, Liberia recently received $20m funding in form of equipment from he African Union to boost regional security. The logistics equipment, previously donated to the AU by the Chinese Government, includes cargo trucks, military protective assault vehicles, armored personnel carriers, combat jeeps, bulldozers, cranes, fuel tanks, fire trucks, and mounted weapon systems, along with spare parts and other materials.
