By Yero S. Bah
For decades, the Gambia government through the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education has been trying to formulate proper curriculum, and education policies and programmes for the basic and secondary education system of the country through numerous interventions.
The various policies and interventions are geared towards the attainment of access, affordable and quality education for the country.
Mr. Jenieri Sagnia is a veteran Gambian educationist with extensive experience, having served in various portfolios at the said Ministry, and other areas such as the Gambia educational specialist, for fifteen years, at the level of UNICEF.
In an interview with Mansa Banko Online, Sagnia acknowledged that the governments of the Gambia and its partners have performed better in the promotion of access to education throughout the Gambia, despite some challenges in certain regions where some communities have conservative views against western education such as Central River Region-North. He said that these communities prefer Islamic religious education over western education.
“These people have conservative views against western education,” the seasoned educationist averred, adding government has gone beyond the targets in access to education; and that “access to education is no longer an issue in the country”.
Enrolment in certain regions, as Sagnia noted, has gone up to one hundred percent, whilst in CRR-North, enrolment in school is just about 70% compared to other regions in the Gambia.
He also cited places such as Upper Saloum, where out of school youth actually hovers around 80 percent. And the veteran educationist said “this is a concern” for the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) as it deters the country from achieving certain set goals when it comes to basic and secondary education in the country.
The mathematician further argued that quality education is misconstrued by many people, reasoning it’s not about the building of massive infrastructures but the availability of quality learning materials, qualified teachers, right management styles and the right environment which determine quality education at the end of the day.
Sagnia submitted also that, even nutrition plays an important role in the attainment of quality education; that the nutrition and school feeding programme in primary schools had also helped to improve learning of the pupils in schools across the country.
Noting that malnutrition affects school children’s learning abilities, the education specialist believed the only solutions to these challenges is that, there has to be a national concerted effort from all stakeholders. He suggested that teachers need proper training, specialization needs to be encouraged, quality education material needs to be provided adequately, so as to facilitate the achievement of relevant and quality education as always yearned for by the ministry and its development partners.
Sagnia told this medium that the ministry is actually aware of these challenges and even have the knowledge on how to solve them. But, he admitted that, it is resource constraints which, in reality, hinder the progress of the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education for the effective implementation of some of its education and strategic policies.
He vouched that the MoBSE has implemented numerous measures in addressing these setbacks such as the introduction of the manuals, regional training officers and cluster monitoring committees. However, he expressed dissatisfaction over the derailment of the cluster monitoring policy, which he claimed, is now turned from a pedagogic standpoint into an inspection program-which was never the original target.
“The cluster monitor policy was to promote pedagogic amongst teachers so that those in the cluster would offer supportive hands to teachers who are not conversant in certain areas, in the subjects they teach in schools,” he explained.
The Country Programme Consultant for Effective Intervention (EI) believed the interaction between teachers and students during school hours is critical in learning and attainment of quality education. He held that “classroom discourse” is paramount to the achievement of the overall goal of quality education in the Gambia.
Sagnia continued that the ministry has a comprehensive and strategic education policy which is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially Goal 4 which promotes education, and the previous global goals such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as the country is a signatory to all global education programmes.
He confirmed that, as at now, MoBSE had been able to tapped funds from global education partners in order to promote quality education, since it is one area that remains a major challenge for the ministry and the government of the Gambia and their partners.
He recalled that during his time at UNICEF, he, together with the UN agency, worked extensively well in the promotion of girls education in the Gambia. The approach was described as “positive gender discrimination” in schools, all meant to encourage the education of the female child, stated Sagnia.
In responding to critics who believed that the curriculum is overloaded with irrelevant contents, Sagnia’s position is that, “it is not”, maintaining that everything that is included is actually good for the socio-economic advancement and needs of the country. “It’s not overloaded,” he re-echoed.
Sagnia, an education consultant, pointed out that as at now, MoBSE is trying to rethink and reshape the basic and secondary education system of the country through the introduction and prioritization of the TVET education programmes, as early as possible, in the basic and education system.
“This will enable early specialization for students,” he said. On the issue of the teaching of native languages, Sagnia opined that the whole idea is misunderstood, noting it is not the target of the ministry to teach pupils their native languages but to synchronize language sounds to that of the English language to enable them to pronounce and read better in English language.
He said since the introduction of this programme in schools, it has helped students improved a lot in their reading and pronunciation abilities.
Meanwhile on the massive graduation of students from high schools without real opportunities for these young graduates, Sagnia advised that people should not only educate themselves for job seeking only, stressing that being able to read and write alone is good enough; but being able to acquire a life skill to earn a living also matters.
In his view, the above concern is one of the reasons why he encourages the Ministry of Basic and Secondary to diversify the curriculum so that students leaving high school would not necessarily be job-seekers but job-creators upon graduation.
“We should produce job creators and not job seekers. Opportunities are not created at the levels of the schools,” he posited.
The education expert for Effective Intervention (EI) was the brainchild of the Mothers’ Club in the Gambia, a programme he borrowed from Burkina Faso. He said the programme in the Gambia is “now a wild fire”, countrywide.
Mr. Jenieri Sagnia holds a BA and Master’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Georgia in USA; a Master’s degree in Early Childhood Development from the University of Victoria in Canada. He also got his initial teacher training locally in the Gambia, and later pursued his further education in Sierra Leone.
The veteran educationist taught for decades in Gambian schools and held various leading roles in these schools; and at the Ministry of Basic and Secondary School of the Gambia.
