Ngorr Ciise asked:

"Can you cite any DEVELOPED country where Grade 9 students are prevented from taking their final exams because their parents can't afford - thanks to an irresponsible and corrupt gov't - to pay the exam fees?

And whilst we are at it: can you cite any period during the PPP when 53 Grade 9 students were prevented from taking their final exams because their parents can't afford to pay their exam fees?"

Ngorr, first and foremost, it is very disingenuous of you to try to draw parallels between 'DEVELOPED' countries and The Gambia. As such, I cannot answer your question.

As to your second question as whether I can cite a period during the time of the PPP when 53 Grade 9 students were prevented from taking final exams because their parents could not afford to pay their exams fees, my answer is that I can cite tens of thousand of cases much worst than this. Ngorr, according to our 1993 census, the population of The Gambia was 1.2 million and yet we had places for less than 20,000 pupils beyond grade 6. This means that tens of thousands of school going children never made it beyond grade 6 each year. This should be quite obvious to anyone accepts the possibilty of at least 5% of our 1.2 million people (60,000 children) were of school going age.

As to what this government is doing for the education of our kids, let me refresh your mind of the developments that has happened in just the past 2 years.

From the 2002 budget speech, read on!

• The Government of the Gambia is committed to the provision of 9 years of uninterrupted basic education to all. The academic year 2000/01 has seen a tremendous expansion of Upper Basic Schools, 19 Upper Basic Schools (UBS) were opened in Regions 1,3,4,5 and 6, representing an increment of 22% from the previous year. This has increased the number of places in UBS, thereby increasing access to the middle schools and the transition rate from Lower to Upper Basic level. Three Senior Secondary Schools have also been opened in Regions 1 and 2.

• Overall, 273 classrooms have been completed and 402 more are committed for 2001. Following a study that was carried out to assess the required classroom renovation, the ADB will be funding the maintenance initiative in schools and construction of staff quarters for teachers in remote areas.

• An operational manual has been completed for the Scholarship Trust Fund. Presently, more than 1800 girls in Upper Basic and Secondary Schools are sponsored in CRD and URD for 2000/01, totalling about D1.7m. The scheme is expected to cover other divisions in due course, all in a bid to increase the retention rate. We are also launching a school-feeding programme to improve on the quality and retention in our schools: 243 Schools are benefiting from the Program and a total of 58,573 children of whom 25,641 are girls. With the new school-feeding Program, the number of beneficiary students is expected to more than double. This will also strengthen the nutritional status of the children.

Have a good day, Gassa.