This news article is from the Point Newspaper. I remember forwarding a
similar news article to this List on the decreasing returns of education in
the Gambia under Yaya. We had Jali Gassa then throwing up tantrums to the
effect that education in the Gambia under Yaya is getting better and better.
Well, as ever, let him go tell that to the voiceless urban and rural poor,
who can't afford the basics of education like exams fees.


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BSTS: Over 50 Students In Trouble

Reports reaching this office from the Greater Banjul Middle School have
intimated that about fifty-two students will not sit to this years grade
nine middle school leaving certificate examinations due to their failure to
pay their examination fees on time. Some students and teachers who spoke to
this reporter but wish to remain anonymous explained that the exams council
have issued a deadline for all students to pay their exams fees, and at the
school out of about 500 students only about 121 failed to pay.

The council then extended the deadline but again about 52 defaulted, causing
the council not to do anything but to close its books and only allow those
students who paid their exams fees to sit to the exams this year. Some of
the remaining students who failed to pay their fees told The Point that they
expected their school authorities to pay their exams fees for them out of
the school budget inorder to enable them sit to the exams so that by the
time their results are out they would be able to settle their bills.

However this was not done and they will have to wait for next year which is
really another set back for them. “You see the big margin between the rich
and poor in this country” one student remarked. ‘The better- off families
were able to pay for their children while we the poor ones were made to pay
the prize of being poor’, he concluded. When this reporter made a phone call
to the school, the principal Mr. Omar Ndure could not comment on the issue.

According to him, he is only two weeks old in the school having recently
taken over from predecessor. According to him, he could not therefore
accertain whether this is true or not. he was however sure of is that the
Exams council have issued a deadline for all payment of examination fees. He
then referred this reporter to the Regional Education Office in Kanifing
which could not be reached despite numerous phone calls to that office.

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CULLED FROM THE POINT NEWSPAPER







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