Gassa, It is nice to see you back. I hope you had a wonderful time in Kenya? Regarding free education for girls , I think it is indeed very pleasing on the part of the government regardless of the “crossfire” rhethoric given the unprecedented nature of the move. In other words education for girls was paid for by parents before and now it is NOT which therefore, in my search and quest for fundamental, penetrating observers not relying on intuition but rather on the process of reasoning, the government deserves the credit under the leadership of President Jammeh. I also have to echo that Sanusi's question is indeed in exact parallel with my deduction form the premise of your statement indicating the president seems to be the one responsible for funds being disbursed as if he is coming out of pocket solidifying suspicion that state assets are indeed being treated as personal properties. Such statements uttered by you and subsequent observations by the APRC camp could be justifiably viewed as a deliberate assertion to perpetuate the belief that government funds are indeed being treated as personal properties of the status quo , and clearly makes it much more difficult to defend against the allegations of misappropriation. Speaking from a western perspective of “public relations” it would be a bombshell for an incumbent leader to claim such accolades under his name, but politics in the Gambia is indeed a totally different ball game and President Jammeh has mastered it which reminds me of the “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY” syndrome when it comes to campaign for re-election and he deserves an A plus for doing his homework. This is clearly obvious from the recent headlines pertaining to the topic, particularly with the suspicious, seemingly accurate but hard to swallow statements echoed by Tombong Saidy classifying the move as another political point scored by the APRC given the opportunistic nature of the Gambian voters. I therefore hope that education will soon be free for everyone and make it mandatory for every child to be in school. You wrote: "Parents only have to submit 4 passport size photos of their girl child, get the head of school to confirm that the girl attends that school, the head compiles a list of the girls enrolled and bingo, his excellency writes out a cheque covering tuition and books." Finally, since it is my sincere belief that there is some good in granting free education for girls in any part of this world , I also beg to defer from Mr. Karamba’s piece in which he mentioned the statement below: “To crown it all the government is making sure that the vast majority of kids in the public schools which is essentially everyone except for the few thousand Gambians whose parents can afford private education , constitute a vast pool of functionally illiterate people they can play like a political yo-yo. The idea is to destroy the people's natural instinct to want to fend for themselves, think for themselves and live their lives based on their initiatives and succeed on their own terms” Best Regards, Ablie Njie- Lekbi Atlanta _________________________________________________________________ Internet access plans that fit your lifestyle -- join MSN. http://resourcecenter.msn.com/access/plans/default.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] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~