Gambia: Gambia's Anti-Intelligent Syndrom AllGambian.net <http://allafrica.com/publishers.html?passed_name=AllGambian.net&passed_location=Onalaska> (Onalaska) OPINION November 5, 2006 Posted to the web November 6, 2006 Kemo Kinteh The "stupid, senseless, and sentimental students let us down" seem to be interpretation of some headlines from our newsrooms. But is it a surprise to us that this year's Junior & Senior Secondary exams are disastrous? Or is it something we all hopelessly acceptingly expected? Do we even care? A stagnant school system What we have in Gambia today is stagnation in all works of life. But let's remain with the education system. Today we have a school system whose aim since its inception in 1993 is to provide basic education to all Gambian Children. Real scrutiny of results supposes to start at grade 9 so that those who excel well can academically be trained while those below average get the possibility of learning craftsmanship. I don't know whether this system was experimental at the time or made definite. However what is clear is that like Biology or science in general, educational policies are required to be updated continually to keep with development and changes. How can we be satisfied with a system that is 13 years old when other countries are modifying their's on continual basis? Teaching has become a no go academic field for a number of reasons. Teachers are among the lowest paid professionals which explain the low morale of our teachers. Added to these are precarious facilities the teachers are made to work with. Imagine a Biology teacher who must put in double effort to visualise a cell without a microscope or computer animation. An English teacher who has no access to tapes and books to illustrate the difference between speech and writing. We may even begin at the training these teachers received. As I know we have a teacher training faculty at Gambia College (Gambia University). Here to my knowledge up to upper basic teachers are trained. How well equipped they are to teach is another question. But where are our senior secondary school teachers trained? Education is not about quantity but quality. If so, therefore a lesson can take place in a village Bantaba with or without a tree or building. What we have today in Gambia is building of structures as a symbol of progress in education. The administration chants that as far as education is concern, "the sky is limit". With only 0.39% student in this year's senior secondary exams scoring a credit in all nine subjects, we may as well rephrase that as far as education is concern, "this is the beginning of the end of education" in the Gambia. Students cannot just be blamed as if they come from outer space, instead from homes, villages, districts and divisions of the Gambia. We try to disown them. Every body says the non-committal phrase noun "the students" as if they are on their own. What we are doing here is a clear rejection of our collective responsibility and duties. Of course with different motives. The Gov can't face the inconvenient truth that it is failing in its role as a central player in educating the populace. Parents are hopeless because many of them are illiterates who cannot even help their kids in doing home works. The news media in the Gambia lack the vigour to place the blame on Government doorsteps, especially Daily Observer's unworthy editorial which tries to exonerate the main player. Where are our leaders and policy makers when such results are published? The abstractive "student" gets the blame. But who is this student? Society's values For an observer it must be shocking to realise that for most Gambians, to have wealth is primarily but how to make wealth is secondary. The victim of this stigma is education and the search of knowledge. Families spent a whole livelihood not paying and encouraging their kids to learn but spend a year's earning on "marabout" (local name for soothsayer) related activities so that a family member may get rich quickly in Europe or in a public office. In the case of the latter, the consequences are looting of national coffers at society's detriment. The kids' education is thus neglected or not taken any more seriously. Just as the saying goes "what would education benefit me if I can get wealthy without input of any efforts?" Our society also has a problem with intelligent fellows among our midst. I only remember the saying among the illiterates that "the educated is not to be trusted". Of course this is understandable, looking at the looting of the national coffers by the elites. I also remember the negative comments made by people to doubt the eligibility of lawyer Ousainou Darboe to be president simply because he is a lawyer. The irony is that we all wish to have excellent doctors, accountants, agriculturalists, scientists etc, but not prepared to accept the complexities that accompanies a learned mind. The society is either being corrupted by the materialising of the world or cannot come to terms with its own responsibility in this dangerous world. But we must reinvent our values. This includes restoring education where it belongs. The pilar of any meaningful upbringing and development. Otherwise we might as well be selecting against ourselves. For only those who embrace education in this globalize era have any chance to be selected for (survival). Government and policy makers It can't be that only 0.39% 0r 25 students were hardworking and studied hard out of more than 6000 candidates. The 25 students might have been privileged with extra-home tutorial. So 99.61% of the candidates are more or less unambitious, lazy, if we are to believe the authorities whose silence imply us to. But the figures illustrate something grave. Namely: something is wrong with the system, lack of concept in the education ministry and lack of awareness schemes among other things. It is like when a president of Iraq wins 99% of votes implying dissent-free dictatorship. The system of the grade system is facing difficulties. Is it that the Jammeh government don't know how to implement it? Or is it a conscious carelessness to show the populace the sort of bad policies Jawara planted? That brings us to the lack of reforms that characterises this gov't since 12 years now in all the function of gov't. If they have a concept then something would have been undertaken to modify the education system were it is due. What we see happening is the education department detached from the students', parents and teachers. But these relationships are the bases of any success in this area. The recent tight lip silence on the exam shows this arkward relationship. One would expect the gov't or the concerned minister make comment on the result and assure worrisome stakeholders of efforts to remedy this unfortunate reality. If we are at the begining of an all out war against the intellectual class, then the alarms must be switched on. It is not the first time that rulers impose illiteracy on their people to lighten the ruling process. A point in case was when Hitler targeted the educated class in Poland (a country he invaded in 1938). There is substance in this claim because a lot of killings target the learned of the society from Koro Ceesay to Deyda Hydara. So why bother educating people you would end up having problems with! Analyst and observers are quite familiar with numbers of learned people who had to to be sacked from this adminitration. Probably due to the anti-intelligent and anti- rational thinking upperhand in the administration. We might also conclude that since that 10/11 April student uprising, the gov't is weary of any support in this direction. Education becomes a propaganda tool. Like back to farm operation when at the end farmers' produce becomes a nightmare. Which function of gov't is in brink of collapse next? We are in deep trouble. The way forward is giving into the helplessness. The other way is for the few privileged learned ones to come together and aspire for quality education for our young ones. This is our own interest because otherwise the uneducated will unwillingly or consciously drive away decent, rational and commonsense. Copyright <http://allafrica.com/copyright.html> © 2006 AllGambian.net. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com <http://allafrica.com/>). 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