In response to Jali Gassa, Jali Gassa: <<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.>> Emphasis yours. Gassa, you are so dishonest that it is sickening: you dishonestly ignored why and who brought the ‘developed countries’ parallel into the exchange; but, as usual, clumsily dodged the issue and started howling at ghosts you keep imagining are on your path. To expose your deceit, let’s revisit the genesis of the relevant parts of our correspondences we’ve had on this thread. This is what you wrote which warranted me throwing some questions at you: <<I never promised you a rose garden, or did I? Even in the DEVELOPED WORLD there are poor people struggling to stay alive and Gambia is no execption. My point has always been that despite our deplorablable state, we are doing our damnest to improve our lot. Remember we are still recovering from the devastation of the former PPP's thirty-year mis-rule and ineptitude.>> Emphasis mine See you brought in the ‘developing countries’ parallel, which is why I posed the question: <<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 knew irresponsible and corrupt gov't - to pay the exam fees? >> It is crystal clear that it is you who brought developing countries into the equation... but you dare have the nerves to accuse me of being disingenuous simply because I asked you to substantiate your rhetoric? I suppose you’ve had one too many at, ahem, Come Inn – tis the only way I can explain your chuckle-headedness… I knew all along you would be hard pressed to cite any specific case in developed countries where kids are prevented from taking their final exams because their parents can’t afford exams fees; I just seized upon another of your deceitful and loopy reasonings to show that you are just another barrel making noises you barely have any deep insights into. As par the PPP record in education, you woefully failed to directly answer the question I posed. This is the question I posed: <<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?>> In response, you wrote: <<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.>> First, you’ve fiddled the census figures – as Yus corrected you earlier. But that is a non sequitur at this stage; it’s good we know you are incapable of telling the truth for a second: you simply are an incorrigible lier. Second, and most importantly, you haven’t answered the crucial question i asked: << 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?>> You’ve cited no specific cases in your response indicating instances where school children – during the PPP days – were prevented from taking their final exams because their parents can’t afford their exam fees. Facts of the contention between us is this: I cited the case of the 53 Grade 9 kids who were prevented from taking their final exams because their parents can’t afford to pay their exam fees as evidence that things are changing for the worse in Gambian education. This is simply because exams fees – regardless of the stage/level of exams being taken – were invariably cheaper and something that was not a problem to the point where school children missed out on their school leaving certificates because they didn’t take their final exams as a result of this. I have never encountered any situation in my time in the Gambia where a pupil was forcibly stopped from taking exams because their parents can’t afford to pay their exams fees. I challenge you again to cite an instance in the PPP era when more than 50 children were stopped from taking their final exams because they couldn’t afford the exam fees. To be sure, you yourself know where I’m pulling you at: the nuance of the argument was affordability of education at the most basic level, or, one of its cheapest components, i.e., exam fees. In a revelatory sentence you wrote: << 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 MUCH WORST THAN THIS. >> Emphasis mine. Meaning you unwittingly, even tacitly, agree that it is worst case scenarios like school fees that were a deterrent under the PPP, and not cheap components of education like exams fees, which, under the APRC, has become a worst case scenario because people are getting poorer and poorer under their watch. See, this is the point: there were, to be sure, numerous problems with education under the PPP. Yet, despite their appalling record in improving the country’s educational infrastructure, and the APRC’s “school projects,” education was relatively cheaper and more affordable under the PPP than under the APRC. Why? In real terms, Gambians were economically better off under the PPP than they currently are under the APRC. This is why exam fees was virtually a non-existent or, in extreme, a peripheral problem in deterring people from finishing basic education without a school leaving certificate. That is to say because people were relatively well-off – economically – under the PPP, the current problems being encountered in financing basic components of education like exams fees for final exams was virtually non-existent or on the periphery. That is the nuance of my key argument. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~