Malanding, thanks for the historical perspective. I think the latter part of what you said has much more to do with the private sector getting more involved in all sectors of the Gambian Economy. Until the 80s, education in Gambia was mostly left in the hands of government until the likes of Mrs. Ndow aggressively pursued the education market and started recruiting more qualified teachers from Ghana and freetown to distinguish the quality you receive in the private sector vs the one you receive from Bakau School. With this, those who could afford it, sent their kids to Mrs. Ndow and those who could not, stayed in public schools. This happens in every country. Not that public schools were all bad because some of my pals who mustered the courage and studied hard made it to Gambia High, Muslim or Saint Augustines. It was more often than not that if you had good marks, you will be able to attend one of these schools. Mrs. Ndow and specifically Marina International entering the education sector, was the beginning of the "dormi minister yang ngay duga benz and badollar yangay runga and carrying chairs to school." I chuckled when Nyang was here talking about carrying chairs and desk to school. My aunt, uncles, elder sister and myself have carried desk to schools before. To Nyang, it was due to corruption but to me, it was merely a matter of resources available at the time. I however do understand Nyang's point since he subscribes to a socialist ideology that tend to believe that government is the solution to all our problems. This ideology is the difference between some of us. Today, you have desk carrying students during the PPP regime who are now lawyers and doctors and you have those who still believe their personal failures or inability to reach full potential is because Jawara did not give them scholarships. I say to each their own, but to say that someone from a poor background did not reach full potential because the son of a minister stole their scholarship is disingenuous to say the least because it simply did not happen. All the same, thanks for chipping in. Regards, Matarr On Friday, May 23, 2014 8:55 AM, Malanding Jaiteh <[log in to unmask]> wrote: In natural systems (space, time and even cultures) rarely do we find clean breaks between two adjacent systems. In other words where exactly does the water stop and land begins along the coast? What is the boundary between a grassy patch and a thicket woodland in the bush? Or more important can anyone identify the boundary between Jammeh’s administration and Jawara as far as the functions of the civil service are concerned? Some will argue that although we know what is truly Jammeh and what is Jawara’s the boundary is really a continuum over the decades. If we allow ourselves to look at things that way it will not be difficult to see anecdotal evidence supporting both Mr. Sanneh’s claim and those counter to it. What is then important is to compare the “statistical centers” of the two administration, i.e those clearly Jawara’s and those clearly Jammeh’s. Many of the 70s and 80s high school generation will tell you that all you needed was to score well in your common entrance and GCE’s exams. This generation saw sons of cobblers, smiths, farmers, ministers and President in the same class. For instance St Augustines in 1975 had two of Jawara’s, two of Jahumpa, Jallow, Joofs, Darboes, Sonkos, Jahs, and Jaitehs. Each class had Banjulians (including Marina International), Kombo boys (who were “always late”), Baddibou, Kiang, Jarra, McCarthy as well as Foni. When placement came all you needed was to apply to. Those of us who hailed from the provinces had few role-models in education thus were limited in their choices, agric, forestry, education, and engineering. The more affluent ones (Banjulians) knew in advance that you can do literature and end up doing law or politics. They had mentors and at times family members who showed them the way and sometimes helped them get to UK or USA. I will confess that many in our class where led to believe that the best institutions of learning were Oxford, Cambridge and not the “Colgate Palmolive universities” as Mr. Sommers former Principal of Gambia High used to put it. In the later years of Jawara, just like the transition from Woodland to grassland, things were less distinguishable from Jammeh’s. This I call the Mrs. Ndow generation. This was the time when you had to register your kid in school at age 18 months. Even that you had to connected to get placement. Whether this was truly Jawara’s fault or the result of limited resources to high demand, it’s hard to tell. The government’s desire to provide education for all was not met with resources availability (both the knowledge of what really works and financial resources). Again things are complicated and cannot be easily simplified in a few sound bites. Malanding From:The Gambia and Related Issues Mailing List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of suntou touray Sent: Friday, May 23, 2014 7:54 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [G_L] Sidi Sanneh Says Bring the forth the Evidence Modou 'There are Gambians who see nothing wrong with helping friends, family members, children of cult members, club members, drinking buddies, golf playing buddies etc at the advantage of genuine intelligent poor students.' This is why I said, it is ridiculous for Sidi to throw such flimsy challenges. In fact, the police who openly take bribe can ask for proofs that they are corrupt, the custom officers who dupe Gambians of millions, the ports staff, the revenue collectors, the housing officers, I mean, there is wide range of nepotism, corruption, and ill-discipline in all spheres of our system. Hence, the systematic failures should not and cannot be brushed under the carpet by Sidi Sanneh or any other former senior civil servant under Jawara and Yaya Jammeh for that matter. His views smell of cockiness and outright arrogance. Systematic problems are issues that are address from top down. However, if former big players within middle to senior level civil services want to tell us, there are no staff members whose sole aims in departments was not to favour their close kit and kin, then God help us. Under President Jammeh, he personalised the whole system..He handpicked students to be offered scholarships, and the system in still fraudulent. To end the failures within our institutions, we have to first address systematic and behavioural short comings. The arrogance in the elite circle is legendary in Africa, no wonder, nothing gets addressed. Who has the time to contact all those Gambian disadvantaged and denied access to scholarship based on their lack of front men in the system? The numbers are huge and what we can do is accept that, no system is full proof, and abuses do take place in every department. There are Gambians who see nothing wrong with helping friends, family members, children of cult members, club members, drinking buddies, golf playing buddies etc at the advantage of genuine intelligent poor students. We should be bold and brave enough to accept the system in place during Jawara era had flaws, some are institutional whilst some are behavioural. However, I am not the least surprise the likes of Sidi are denying the malpractices that existed. We need to be sophisticated enough to understand, we are a long way away from addressing our compounded problems. Poverty is a mole in our midst that will make many people self-centred, corrupt, nepotic, and bias. And the sooner we accept our problems, the better we can plan to address them. Yahya Jammeh's malpractices are such that, the enablers make everything easy for him. Isn't it Gambians doing all the wrong doing Sidi Sanneh is blog posting everyday about. It is the same Gambians who were there during Jawara's time. Jawara was very soft. Calling him a dictator is inaccurate. The failures for instance of Gambian Commercial and Development bank is marred in multiple facets. Whatever categories Sidi Sanneh put forward was abused. This is not a direct comparison between President Jammeh and Jawara, or the PPP and APRC...If the systems in place are susceptive to abuses, it doesn't matter which party or person is the head of government, people will be corrupt. And corruption is not just taking money directly, many forms of favours are classic corruption. Certainly, the scholarship board then and now has members who don't according to the rule. Suntou On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 4:04 PM, Modou Nyang <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Matarr, Now it appears as if you are representing Sidi or have some kind of vested interested in this. Here is my response to you. First, I did not make any claim or accusation of nepotism or otherwise against the Jawara government or even Yaya what I did was share an article I found to be very low in persuasion and asked a few I think may have something to say about it. Secondly, you want us to limit the scope of this discussion to “the 3 kinds of scholarships that the author said were available under Jawara” no, that is to narrow ourselves along Sidi’s line of argument of which reason may be, he himself knew very well that the “empirical” data to refute him is not available for reference. This is why I even think you are owning up Sidi’s charges in the first place by forcing this line of argument. Why would you want me to limit my enquiry of the validity of sidi’s claims of smart “resource allocation” as the reason behind the sending of Gambian students to African universities than to the UK or US? I know that those African countries as well as others around the world including the UK and US through other organizations did provide funding for educational purposes to governments like that of the Gambia under Jawara and even Jammeh today. I find Sidi’s argument on that line to be unconvincing and for you trying to do the same by disconnecting the two is not helping either. Did the Gambia government under Jawara pay the cost of education in of Gambian students in any African country or where they sponsored under other programs? If there were any how does that compare in terms of quantity to those that were not funded by the Gambia government? These are legitimate questions especially if Sidi’s attribution of cost as the reason for the preference of African universities to those in the UK and US by the Jawara government. Again, Matarr the discourse is not going to be limited to “children of ministers” because the machinery and cabal around Jawara was much more and not limited to the number of children of all the ministers that served under Jarawa’s three decade long government. And for your argument of what constitute nepotism is quite telling of your mindset on the issue and the yardstick with which you measure service delivery by government officials as related to their relatives and offspring’s, and to that I will not argue with your opinions as that is not going to help us. The dictionary definition of nepotism is not even necessary here as your argument on this issue is quite telling and revealing. And by the way I know not a single one of those names you gave and just like I said above, I did not make any charges and therefore have nothing to prove. And just questioning the reason being paraded by Sidi and now being defended by you. By the way who told you that as a backbencher at I would not have been miles ahead of where I am today if smart “resource allocation” was implemented in the education system sort to destine me as a wood or metal worker and left me without a high school to go to after 1995? How about that, or is this one also a myth? Regards, Nyang On Thursday, May 22, 2014 12:42 AM, Bamba sering Manka Mass <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >Hahaha Gambia is very interesting with so much fake intellectuals. Please can we suspend this topic for our supposed debate on Kibaaro radio and Television services when we choose the date and time so that those in the know and with proof would call in to substantiate either for Sidi's version or those challenging him? > >--- Original Message --- > >From: "Matarr Sillah" <[log in to unmask]> >Sent: 22 May 2014 04:31 >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: Sidi Sanneh Says Bring the forth the Evidence > >Nyang, > >There is no nepotism if one meets all the set criteria for a scholarship award; none whatsoever. And remember, you are yet to provide anything to substantiate the claims of nepotism (as it relates to the children of ministers) on this scholarship issue. It is only in Gambia that one can be accused without any evidence and asked to defend him/herself. Sidi gave you a simple task, which is to name one son or daughter of minister who received scholarship and he will come up with evidence and name 10 that were of poor background. Is that not good evidence to support his claim? The onus is not on him to provide "evidence", but for you or those who believe in this myth to give him 1 and in exchange he will provide 10. Now it seems that coming up with 1 is a tall order for those who have been repeating this lie for decades. > >On technical assistance, commonwealth etc, you will do yourself great service if you go back and read the 3 kinds of scholarships that the author said were available under Jawara. Although there is yet to be evidence that the sons of ministers were favored, you do realize that nepotism will not help a son or daughter of a minister who does not have the sponsors required academic qualifications; this was and is still a core requirement. > >Providing evidence may "not the be all and end all of what constitutes truth" but it is a pretty good start...no? Seriously, coming up with one son or daughter of a PPP minister should not be this difficult. We can talk about allocation of resources all we want, but the question remains - did the children of ministers get scholarships to the U.S and the U.K while the rest went to the University of Ibadan? If yes, who? > >I actually hate to "drop names" but unless you mean to tell me that the likes of Ebrima Mbenga, Serign Cham or Halifax King (all excellent students) are undeserving of their scholarships to study in the U.S or U.K, I will say the onus is on you to find one underserving son or daughter of a civil servant that received a scholarship they were not suppose to receive. > >Thanks, >Matarr > >¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ >To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface >at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html > >To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l >To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: >[log in to unmask] >¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ > >¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ >To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface >at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html > >To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l >To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: >[log in to unmask] >¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ -- www.suntoumana.blogspot.com ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤