By: Lamin B. Darboe, Information Officer, MoBSE
Permanent Secretary (PS) at the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) on Friday speaks on “International Day of Education” the day is being commemorated worldwide on January 24th annually.
PS Ebrima Sisawo described the day as an important day worldwide especially in The Gambia thus stressing that generally, everybody knows how critical education sector is.
“You cannot talk about any meaningful development in any country without education. So basically education should serve as the foundation for any meaningful development in any country.”
He was mentioned that his ministry have achieved a lot when it comes to access to education adding: “In 2015 the total enrollment of students in schools stands at 411, 000 students, while currently we are talking about above 600, 000 students which his ministry is able to make a lot of strives in terms of access to education in the country,” his said.
According to PS Sisawo, during his Ministry’s 2011 surveyed, they found out that there were various factors that contributed to the students dropping out of schools key among these factors was the cost of school fees.
Some of the steps taken in getting quality education PS Sisawo went on include reviewing the school curriculum to make it relevant to the chalk demands.
Sisawo revealed that MoBSE is currently working with The Gambia College to strengthening the capacity building of teachers and improve the Early Childhood education.
Every year he continued his ministry sends nothing less than 300 teachers to the UTG so as to build their capacity and asserted that the most important thing to achieve quality education is to build the foundation of teachers.
He highlighted that his ministry’s intervention areas includes sending students to Quranic schools in order to study skills and knowledge in order to prepare them for jobs in public sectors.
“It is also a good step to train more teachers who in-turn will teach children with special needs with skills that will prepare those (special needs) for the future. And let me finally acknowledges the Government efforts and challenges in education sector.”
