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Gambia News : Poor teaching quality slows education progress
Enrolment
rates at all levels of education have improved in The Gambia since
2000, but with too few qualified teachers and low staff retention
levels, fewer than half of Gambian students pass standardised tests.
In
2008 national exams, just 20 percent of grade-three students passed
English and 18 percent Maths. Grade-five students fared little better –
30 percent of them passed English and 13 percent Maths, according to a
Department of Education strategy published in August 2008.
“Quality
remains a serious problem in Gambian schools,” said Min-whee Kang,
representative for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in The Gambia.
High
teacher and student absenteeism, low content knowledge of trainee
teachers, and few career development opportunities for teachers,
compromise quality education, according to the Department of
Education’s 2008-11 strategy.
Quality the greatest challenge
Over
half of the country’s teachers are unqualified according to Isatou
Ndow, head of the government staff training college, Gambia College,
which trains all government teachers.
Up until recently many
of the teaching trainees were hardly educated themselves, said Ndow,
and many paid people to sit their exams for them to get them into the
school. As a result, “Some trainees were so poorly qualified upon
entering our college that rather than teaching them how to teach, we
have to instruct them in Maths and English from scratch.”
The
college now has a strict interview policy to try to stamp out this
practice, according to Ndow. The government has set ambitious targets
to train 350 new primary school and 300 secondary school teachers a
year.
But education officials say it is difficult to attract
qualified candidates. At 1,200 Delasi (US$28) a month, teaching is not
a popular profession, said headmistress Awa Johndimbalan of New Joshua
lower basic school in Fajara, 6km from Banjul. “It’s hard to live on
this when a [50-kg] bag of rice costs 1,000 Delasi ($40),” she said.
“Teachers leave our school to join the army, set up a business, or go
to the US or Britain.”
Training college director Ndow said,
“Young people today want quick money. The government pays to train
them, they stay one year and then they leave. We [the government] are
losing money this way.”
Quality is even lower at religious schools, or Madrassas, which educate one in seven Gambian students, Ndow said.
At
the Madrassa Bilal Boarding school in Serekunda, 8km from the capital
Banjul, teachers instruct girls in Arabic, the Koran, and worship. None
of the teachers are qualified to teach English or Maths and the
principal Amadou Jallow does not understand basic English, the
country’s official language.
He administers the girls the exams himself, and when it comes to monitoring teachers, “I am the quality control,” he said.
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| The government has given each pupil at New Joshua school in Fajara Maths and English text books | Government changes
The government is trying to improve access to quality education under its 2008-11 strategy, UNICEF’s Kang said.
This
involves stepping up the training and supply of teachers, improving
early child education, reforming the national curriculum across both
government and religious schools, providing schools with textbooks and
other supplies, and introducing standardised national exams.
The Gambian government puts 19.5 percent of its annual budget toward education.
UNICEF’s
Min-whee praises the effort. “Education is now the only sector in the
country with a sector-wide plan,” she said. “There is a real spirit of
partnership now between the government and UNICEF – they are committed
to ambitious reforms.”
Impact
The
Gambia has seen some progress over the past three years, partly thanks
for $13.5 million in World Bank ‘education for all’ funding. Enrolment
rates are up from 85 percent in 1998 to 92 percent in 2007 at the
primary level, and from 29 percent to 65 percent at advanced primary,
according to the Department of Education strategy.
Pupil-teacher
ratios have improved, with 30 students now compared to 45, and some
school principals say as a result they are starting to see better exam
results. “We now have qualified teachers. The government pays for them
to go on management courses each year; and our exam pass rate improved
in 2007,” said Johndimbalan.
Quality in Madrassas and rural
schools in particular, is improving, according to Ndow. Qualified
teachers are now paid 50 percent extra to teach in remote rural
schools. And 149 Madrassas have accepted government grants to introduce
the national curriculum and introduce English language education; this
is double the number the government had expected would participate in
the voluntary programme. In return, the schools receive teaching
materials and partake in national school-feeding programmes.
“They [principals at Madrassas] are starting to realise they’re at a disadvantage if they’re not qualified,” Ndow said.
But
challenges remain. Ndow fears these efforts will not have a real impact
unless teacher quality is more closely monitored. At the moment there
is no performance management system in place, so poor teachers can
remain in the system for years, she said.
“How do you put in
place a performance management system? How do you develop a curriculum
across all schools? How do donors coordinate better on quality issues?
These are the questions donors are now asking,” UNICEF’s Kang told
IRIN.
To bring education quality in line with attendance improvements, the government will need more sustained financing, said Kang.
Despite
World Bank, African Development Bank and bilateral donor funding over
the past few years, overall funding to education, even with the
government’s allocation “is still a pittance”, said Kang.
“Investment
in education is not a one-off – it requires a forever-fund,” she said.
“If more [donor] funding doesn’t flow even the 19.5 percent won’t be
enough to improve quality in the long-term.”
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- Our Charity, the African Oyster Trust, has several schools around Tujering. Get in touch! We always want volunteers.
(Posted on April 20, 2010, 11:33 AM Kira Dalton)
- hi just would like to speak to sheila walker. I have an education foundation in Gambia and would like some ideas from you ? our foundation is new and we are in discussion with the city council of Banjul to aquire some land, and build a local school for primary pupils. Our aim is free education to as many children as possible (obviously funds willing)
j finegan (finegan-Jenkins Foundation)
(Posted on February 7, 2010, 8:48 PM chas finegan)
- very interesting article, having volunteered myself in the Gambia couldnt agree more. i have a teaching qualification and completed a tefl course i would be very interested in a small teaching post in a rural school.
coming to live in tujering 2010
(Posted on December 27, 2009, 1:02 PM sheila walker)
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