Task team set for Big Bang Education For All Campaign

By Landing Bondi

A task team for The Gambia 2002 Big Bang Education For All (EFA) Campaign was launched recently by the Secretary of State for Education, Anna Therese Ndong-Jatta. The Gambia has achieved close to 85 percent primary school enrolment and, when you add the Madrassas, 90 percent, she said in her office on Monday May 20th, when she launched a team set up "to reach 100 per cent."

"Our goal," she said, "is to reach 100 per cent, and stakeholders are brought together to tackle the problem of getting the remaining 10 per cent." She asserted that the easiest part had been achieved, but the most difficult one is yet to be done. 

The campaign is not only for education, but also for health and environment, adding that the campaign is going beyond girl's enrolment.

The task of the team is to carry out a massive, intensive sensitisation campaign concurrently in parts of Regions Four, Five and Six, which are considered to be most deprived and have out-of-school children.

The campaign will start in June and will last for one week.  It will be linked with the overall effort of attaining not only universal access to basic education, but also to the development of the education system in its entirety, including the pursuance of quality, equality and other educational ideals and values.

The objectives of the campaign are to make every school/madrassa a girl-friendly school; make every community/village/hamlet a girl-friendly community; ensure that every child of school-going age is enrolled in school/madrassa by September 2002; assess other needs of the community/village/hamlet.

Also to develop a strategic plan for sustainability of the EFA movement; establish literacy centres with polyvalent teachers trained to work at such centres through support from the Community Skills Improvement Project (CSIP) and/or other sources; to link literacy and early childhood development centres with the programme of the mother's clubs; and to encourage the establishment of community-based ECD initiatives.