Gambia: Gambia's Anti-Intelligent Syndrom



AllGambian.net 
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(Onalaska)

OPINION
November 5, 2006
Posted to the web November 6, 2006

Kemo Kinteh

The "stupid, senseless, and sentimental students let us down" seem to be 
interpretation of some headlines from our newsrooms. But is it a 
surprise to us that this year's Junior & Senior Secondary exams are 
disastrous? Or is it something we all hopelessly acceptingly expected? 
Do we even care?

A stagnant school system

What we have in Gambia today is stagnation in all works of life. But 
let's remain with the education system. Today we have a school system 
whose aim since its inception in 1993 is to provide basic education to 
all Gambian Children. Real scrutiny of results supposes to start at 
grade 9 so that those who excel well can academically be trained while 
those below average get the possibility of learning craftsmanship. I 
don't know whether this system was experimental at the time or made 
definite. However what is clear is that like Biology or science in 
general, educational policies are required to be updated continually to 
keep with development and changes. How can we be satisfied with a system 
that is 13 years old when other countries are modifying their's on 
continual basis?

Teaching has become a no go academic field for a number of reasons. 
Teachers are among the lowest paid professionals which explain the low 
morale of our teachers. Added to these are precarious facilities the 
teachers are made to work with. Imagine a Biology teacher who must put 
in double effort to visualise a cell without a microscope or computer 
animation. An English teacher who has no access to tapes and books to 
illustrate the difference between speech and writing. We may even begin 
at the training these teachers received. As I know we have a teacher 
training faculty at Gambia College (Gambia University). Here to my 
knowledge up to upper basic teachers are trained. How well equipped they 
are to teach is another question. But where are our senior secondary 
school teachers trained?

Education is not about quantity but quality. If so, therefore a lesson 
can take place in a village Bantaba with or without a tree or building. 
What we have today in Gambia is building of structures as a symbol of 
progress in education. The administration chants that as far as 
education is concern, "the sky is limit". With only 0.39% student in 
this year's senior secondary exams scoring a credit in all nine 
subjects, we may as well rephrase that as far as education is concern, 
"this is the beginning of the end of education" in the Gambia.

Students cannot just be blamed as if they come from outer space, instead 
from homes, villages, districts and divisions of the Gambia. We try to 
disown them. Every body says the non-committal phrase noun "the 
students" as if they are on their own. What we are doing here is a clear 
rejection of our collective responsibility and duties. Of course with 
different motives. The Gov can't face the inconvenient truth that it is 
failing in its role as a central player in educating the populace. 
Parents are hopeless because many of them are illiterates who cannot 
even help their kids in doing home works. The news media in the Gambia 
lack the vigour to place the blame on Government doorsteps, especially 
Daily Observer's unworthy editorial which tries to exonerate the main 
player. Where are our leaders and policy makers when such results are 
published? The abstractive "student" gets the blame. But who is this 
student?

Society's values

For an observer it must be shocking to realise that for most Gambians, 
to have wealth is primarily but how to make wealth is secondary. The 
victim of this stigma is education and the search of knowledge. Families 
spent a whole livelihood not paying and encouraging their kids to learn 
but spend a year's earning on "marabout" (local name for soothsayer) 
related activities so that a family member may get rich quickly in 
Europe or in a public office. In the case of the latter, the 
consequences are looting of national coffers at society's detriment. The 
kids' education is thus neglected or not taken any more seriously. Just 
as the saying goes "what would education benefit me if I can get wealthy 
without input of any efforts?"

Our society also has a problem with intelligent fellows among our midst. 
I only remember the saying among the illiterates that "the educated is 
not to be trusted". Of course this is understandable, looking at the 
looting of the national coffers by the elites. I also remember the 
negative comments made by people to doubt the eligibility of lawyer 
Ousainou Darboe to be president simply because he is a lawyer. The irony 
is that we all wish to have excellent doctors, accountants, 
agriculturalists, scientists etc, but not prepared to accept the 
complexities that accompanies a learned mind.

The society is either being corrupted by the materialising of the world 
or cannot come to terms with its own responsibility in this dangerous 
world. But we must reinvent our values. This includes restoring 
education where it belongs. The pilar of any meaningful upbringing and 
development. Otherwise we might as well be selecting against ourselves. 
For only those who embrace education in this globalize era have any 
chance to be selected for (survival).

Government and policy makers


It can't be that only 0.39% 0r 25 students were hardworking and studied 
hard out of more than 6000 candidates. The 25 students might have been 
privileged with extra-home tutorial. So 99.61% of the candidates are 
more or less unambitious, lazy, if we are to believe the authorities 
whose silence imply us to. But the figures illustrate something grave. 
Namely: something is wrong with the system, lack of concept in the 
education ministry and lack of awareness schemes among other things. It 
is like when a president of Iraq wins 99% of votes implying dissent-free 
dictatorship. The system of the grade system is facing difficulties. Is 
it that the Jammeh government don't know how to implement it? Or is it a 
conscious carelessness to show the populace the sort of bad policies 
Jawara planted? That brings us to the lack of reforms that characterises 
this gov't since 12 years now in all the function of gov't. If they have 
a concept then something would have been undertaken to modify the 
education system were it is due. What we see happening is the education 
department detached from the students', parents and teachers. But these 
relationships are the bases of any success in this area. The recent 
tight lip silence on the exam shows this arkward relationship. One would 
expect the gov't or the concerned minister make comment on the result 
and assure worrisome stakeholders of efforts to remedy this unfortunate 
reality.

If we are at the begining of an all out war against the intellectual 
class, then the alarms must be switched on. It is not the first time 
that rulers impose illiteracy on their people to lighten the ruling 
process. A point in case was when Hitler targeted the educated class in 
Poland (a country he invaded in 1938). There is substance in this claim 
because a lot of killings target the learned of the society from Koro 
Ceesay to Deyda Hydara. So why bother educating people you would end up 
having problems with! Analyst and observers are quite familiar with 
numbers of learned people who had to to be sacked from this 
adminitration. Probably due to the anti-intelligent and anti- rational 
thinking upperhand in the administration. We might also conclude that 
since that 10/11 April student uprising, the gov't is weary of any 
support in this direction. Education becomes a propaganda tool. Like 
back to farm operation when at the end farmers' produce becomes a 
nightmare. Which function of gov't is in brink of collapse next?

We are in deep trouble. The way forward is giving into the helplessness. 
The other way is for the few privileged learned ones to come together 
and aspire for quality education for our young ones. This is our own 
interest because otherwise the uneducated will unwillingly or 
consciously drive away decent, rational and commonsense.

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