By Mustapha Jarju
Lamin Fatty, president of the Gambia College Student Teachers Association has said more than four thousand students who are under sponsorship cannot obtain their attestation to start their teaching practice due, as Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MOBSE) failed to pay their tuition fees.
“Over four thousand students of Gambia College are affected by the MoBSE failure to pay for their sponsored students. First year students, second year diploma students and even the final year advance diploma students who are about to complete their program are among those affected by this issue. I hope both MOBSE and its sole partners should come to a dialogue on this issue to make sure there is possible respond,” he said.
“This issue will be a major discussion as there will be a table of discussion among the stakeholders at the Council level, as school opened and majority of college students supposed to go for their teaching practice, these students don’t know their faith, they don’t know either they will have their memo or not and they don’t know either they will fulfil these requirements as part of their programs even,” he added.
According to him, he personally engaged the principal of Gambia College on the issue “but what he told me was that the students have to pay and I tried to appeal to the principal but he insisted that the students have to pay, saying MoBSE owes the College over D40million.”
He continued: “We do not know how this D40million came about, they have to come and tell us why they are denying us the scholarship and why the MoBSE also is not paying the money that the college is asking them to pay.” But, Fatty alleged that, they came to realize that there was an agreement made between the College and MoBSE, “where MOBSE promised to pay something but I don’t know how things came up until the agreement was broken.”