Mr. Baldeh,
You must be spending too much time chasing cattle not to discover the 
good in domadaa and mbarbaka! Believe me domadaa is the best food ever. 
So said our Mbembaa from Jakaa.
On a more serious note, we should not lose site that this grand plan for 
education, while may be equivalent to CPR for a bleeding dying patient 
must not be taken for a long-term patient care. A few things in the 
Gambia today suggest to me that the country needs the equivalent of a CPR.
1. 20% of the population (270,000) are 15 to 24yrs old.Only 120,000 
(including 53000 in cropping) of this group consider themselves to be 
employed.
2. Net senior secondary (college bound kids) enrollment 7.9%, gross 
enrollment 20%. Gross secondary enrollment in Cuba, Singapore and US are 
93, 93 and 75%. Gross and NET should be equal if the school systems 
ensure that kids of every age are in their appropriate grade. In the 
Gambia the difference arise mainly kids staying in longer at school 
(late entey or repeats to make the cut to the few places at 
post-secondary level).
3. In 2003 19,700 (including visitors at the time of census) reported to 
have post seocondary education (above high school, vocational to PHD) a 
teeny 1.7% of the population. This figure cannot stay as is if Gambia is 
to become Singapore!

By all estimates, the Gambia loses some 2000 kids each year to 
hustling/Babilon. From what we know, majority of these are those leaving 
the land for all what is worth or coming to the end of the road to 
school with no chance of college studies. Even if all 2000 kids find 
their way to the US with visitors visas (and no chance of legalizing 
long-term residence), and take up honorable dishwashing jobs at $8.00 
per hr (California standard), they would make $640 every 2 weeks. The 
official US figures for foreign born workers with a bachelors degree is 
$1060 per week. I wonder how many of would not want to be "farmed out" 
(sister Jabou) of the Gambia for that?

In fact the government of the Gambia negotiating temporary worker visas 
cannot be seen as "farming out" or encouraging brain-drain, but an 
acknowledgement of the fact that Gambia's economy cannot absorp 2500 
college graduates per year. Unfortunately this would not change in the 
next 10 years even in a Gambia under another government. The chance to 
work in multi-national companies or in the first world would help create 
a new breed of workers. Those skilled enough to compete globally but 
also with connections they make earlier in their carreer to become 
better entrepreneurs on return. More importantly we should learn from 
the unschooled Sarahule, Baddibunkas and Fanafanas who go out to get 
their startup capital just to return home and become the retailers and 
landlords in Greater Banjul. Unfortunately many of those cannot keep 
track of things once the business moves out of the living room to the 
boardroom.

Brother Mo, the fear of brain drain must not allow us to overlook the 
long-term benefits of this plan.

A very big fan of "domodaa",

Malanding




Mo Baldeh wrote:

>Dr. Jaiteh, 
>
>I have to confess that I may have missed your point of contention on the education issue.
>  
>You’re right that despite so many projects - Jahally/Patcharr, RDP, OMVG, etc. – Gambians are more dependent on imported food today than ever before.  
>   
>  Personally, I do not see anything wrong with the mechanization of farming. My concern is that the 500 tractors will be used as voter inducement and, quite often, most of the 'farmers' that receive these tractors barely know how to plant a seed in the ground.  They are the Gambian equivalent of the South American latifundia, with President Jammeh at the helm. 
>   
>  And The Gambia has this inexplicable obsession with peanuts that my Jahanka cousins can only explain away as our appetizing desires for domodaa and mbarbaka.
>   
>  The hard toiling ones (with no political connections whatsoever) that use the backbreaking hoe from sunrise to sunset, constitute the bulk of the farming population.  This layer of the peasant population is so pauperized that they can barely feed themselves all year round much less keep their children in school.
>
>If we look at the Asian model, especially the economies of the East Asian Tigers, we will discover that these countries used indigenous means to speed up and dramatically increase their economic growth.  Particular emphasis was given to education, industrialization, and trade; and with their skilled labor and readily available markets, they saw a level of development in so short a span that it even baffled Western economists.  
>   
>  It has long been argued that Africa’s bane is its leadership.  Over four decades now, we are still trying to find our footing in our this independent(sic) world.  Our societies are characterized by stubborn dictatorships, endless civil strife, inept and inflated civil services, massive corruption and all the other ills that drive our brothers and sisters across North African deserts to die in the Mediterranean.
>  
>At a time when Europe and the North Amrica are closing their borders to immigration (clandestine or legal), the last thing that Africa would want to do is encourage brain drain.  If the further exportation of our brains to the West is our 21st century version of poverty reduction, then The Gambia or indeed Africa is doomed.
>   
>  Thanks,
>   
>  Momodou.
>
>
>Malanding Jaiteh <[log in to unmask]> wrote:  If one is to go by the NADD Manifesto, The Alliance's Document and the 
>statement by SoS Touray that the APRC government is to provide farmers 
>500 tractors, looks like Gambians are poised for the same old, same old 
>- dump more of our hard borrowed cash into the agriculture basket. By 
>now it should be clear to all that the trouble in the agricultural 
>sector is more than just lack of funding. Few would disagree that 
>dispite two governments, aid from two Chinas plus the West and even 
>Iran, countless Departments of Agriculture, projects (Mixed Farming, 
>GARD, Jahali-Pacharr, LADEP) institutions and agencies (NARI, NADA), 
>and billion of Dalasi, the Gambia is neither self-sufficient in food 
>production nor has it increase earning from agriculture. Infact the 
>contribution of agriculture to our national economy has been on the 
>decline while all these is going on. Given the current state of the 
>physical environment (climate and water resources) and economic 
>environment (globalization and crop pricing), it is hard to imagine what 
>agriculture can do for the Gambia.
>Given the above, I would argue that it is high time we take a second 
>look at agriculture (represented by the Axe and the Hoe on our coat of 
>arm) as the engine to national development efforts since independence. 
>I would go a step further to ask the incoming government (APRC, NADD or 
>The Alliance) to make a "put man on the moon" kind of declaration on 
>education. Cornerstone of this would be immediate expansion of the 
>University system and begining 2010 to train free of charge:
>
>2500 undergraduate degree and 100 graduates each year (2010 - 2015)
>5000 undergrads and 500 graduate degrees ( after 2015)
>
>In addition to free training, the government should negotiate with US, 
>EU and other large economies to help provide these with temporary worker 
>visa. In return the students will be required to pay through their 
>employers 10% of their salary towards re-embursing the Gambia 
>government. The idea is to borrow and invest in a product more 
>marketable than peanuts.
>
>Some back of the envelop calculation:
>At the end of the fourth year, with 10000 students * $2,500 per year 
>tuition is $25,000,000 (the cost of 500 tractors)
>suppose 50% of those landed in a job in the UK or US ($35000) per year. 
>Remittance at 10% of salary is $3,500 * 5000 = $17,500,000. Nay Bad! 
>and defintely more than what we get from peanuts these days.
>This would not include money sent home to family and friend, on 
>vacations (knowing you do not have to worry about the visa office), on a 
>retirement house or two (every Gambians wish).
>Infact we are losing that many to immigration as we speak. Just that the 
>ones we are losing now are less prepared to survive in Babilon, with 
>barely a driver license much more a high school diploma to compete the 
>skilled labor from Poland or Mexico.
>
>Perhaps I am just dreaming. Certainly I do hope its a dream come true.
>
>Malanding Jaiteh
>
>¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
>To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
>at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html
>
>To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
>To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
>[log in to unmask]
>¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
>
>
> 		
>---------------------------------
>Stay in the know. Pulse on the new Yahoo.com.  Check it out. 
>
>¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
>To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
>at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html
>
>To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
>To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
>[log in to unmask]
>¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
>
>  
>

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤