“All children, young people and adults will have the human right to benefit from an education that will meet their basic learning needs… By 2015 all children will have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality.”
Dakar Framework for Action, 2000.
The development of Education Systems in LEDCs (Less Economically Developed Countries) has frequently required three types of interventions, in capacity, relevance and quality.
To ensure adequate capacity, schools are built and teachers are trained. In Gambian villages there are modern concrete-built schools resulting from construction programmes with donor funding. However, there will be no glass in the windows (students and their books and papers are open to wind and rain), no electricity for computers, lights or fans, and no running water for toilets or drinks. And a number of modern classrooms stand empty because there is a lack of money to buy furniture; some schools teach half their classes in the morning and half in the afternoon simply because they cannot provide sufficient tables and chairs. There is also a shortage of teachers, and schools recruit a large proportion of unqualified teachers to fill the gaps. VSO and BESPOR (the two NGOs with whom I work) are working to train these unqualified teachers, particularly in the Central River Division around Janjanbureh.
Once capacity has been increased, the education offered must be relevant to the students and their community. Many colonised countries initially adopted the European curricula of their coloniser, and therefore students have been studying material that is simply irrelevant to them. Textbooks and exam papers may refer to washing machines, trains and traffic lights, but most students in The Gambia have no experience of these things. So these curricula are being rewritten in a way that is relevant to the local communities. Students learn about agriculture and local economic history, and there is less emphasis on astronauts, lasers and central heating. I was offered the post of ‘Relevant Education Officer’ in Papua New Guinea before I took this placement, which would have meant working in this field.
And finally, once the curriculum is relevant, the education delivered must be of sufficient quality. This is the current issue in many LEDCs including The Gambia. There are some excellent schools with good leadership and well-motivated teachers, but these are in a minority. More than three-quarters of children in The Gambia will attend some form of schooling, but many will under-achieve and only a tiny percentage make it to secondary school. There are complex economic, social, environmental and cultural reasons for this, and these must be understood and addressed if high quality education is to be delivered on a wide scale.
My role is to work with Department of State for Basic and Secondary Education (DoSBSE) on matters relating to educational quality. Most of my work is within the Standards and Quality Assurance Directorate (SQAD), one of the divisions of DoSBSE. The SQAD team is comprised of ten education officers with a range of experience; many have been headteachers or regional officers before coming to work at headquarters. They are well-qualified people, many with masters degrees from UK universities, and they tell me about their experiences in Bristol, Birmingham or Newcastle. We are supported by a group of secretarial staff and drivers. I enjoy working with this team, and they have been very welcoming to me. Most of them call me ‘Mr Justin’, all except for the director who knows this is not how British names are used; with an amusing smug poise he calls me ‘Mr Simon’.
The directorate are responsible for writing a new Quality Assurance Framework for education in The Gambia. My role is to provide management advice to the Director Mr Momodou Jeng and technical expertise to his team. Writing this Framework is a massive task and will certainly go beyond my time here. Therefore it is necessary to work through and with my Gambian colleagues in a way that enables both them and me to understand the issues and for us to find solutions together. Sometimes it would be easier to hide in an office and produce reports and policies, but such a non-participatory approach would probably produce no sustainable outcome. So we spend our time working together on improving (or rather, inventing) the quality assurance monitoring systems for education throughout the country. This will involve a flow of data from schools to clusters to regional offices and ultimately to headquarters, and then a distribution of analysis, reports and advice back in the other direction. It will involve the development of monitoring instruments and the training of school staff and regional education officers in how to use them. SQAD is not an inspectorate; our business is quality assurance rather than quality control. We are aiming for a system of informed self-review and development planning, and not inspection. Which means no, I have not joined Ofsted.
The DoSE offices are in the capital, Banjul. From the second floor of the building we look at towards the mouth of the River Gambia, and the ferry to Barra. (Actually we can see only a little of the estuary because other buildings obscure the view, but one day I intend to venture up to the flat roof and take some photographs). Also housed in the same building (and another nearby) are other directorates with whom we have contact, such as Curriculum and HR. The West Africa Examinations Council (WAEC) is based up the road. And the office of the Permanent Secretary for Education is on the same floor as mine. He is a clear-thinking man with a sincere desire to improve education here, and his leadership has been important in making real steps of progress in recent years.
I also work out of another office outside Banjul, in Kanifing. This is the office of the BESPOR team. BESPOR (Basic Education Services for Poverty Reduction) is the Gambian arm of Cambridge Education Services, who have a five-year contract to assist DoSBSE, with funding from DfID and the World Bank. I have come here as part of the BESPOR strategy for Educational Development in The Gambia. This project is part of the Gambian response to the 2015 ‘Education for All’ goals agreed at the World Conference on Education that took place in Dakar, Senegal, in 2000. 2015 is only eight years ahead, and there is much to do in order to meet our obligations. Periodically, a World Bank team comes to inspect the progress of DoSBSE and set short-term targets. In their last visit they specified Educational Quality as an area of concern. This means that they are able to withdraw or reduce funding for the project if they see no improvement at the time for the next inspection. And this places a greater imperative and urgency on our work in SQAD.
It is a pleasant change to work in an environment not controlled by the hourly sounding of a bell. Instead, there is the call to prayer at two o’clock when all the Muslim men disappear to the mosque for a while. Meetings and workshops generally begin with prayer too, and schools often finish just before two o’clock and students will all troop out to the sandy yard (there are no grassy playing fields here) for prayer; perhaps we should have introduced that at Beauchamps High School.
I am told that a typical volunteer spends their first six months getting used to the environment by making cultural mistakes and offending people (which the Gambians politely do not tell you about until just before you leave), then another few months learning how to do things properly and understanding the work that is required. And after that it may be possible to make a modest impact in terms of a positive contribution of some kind. Like many, I was fairly achievement-driven in my work back in the UK. People have different priorities here, and I will be judged (certainly in this early stage) by the quality of my relationships rather than the magnitude of my output; this will be an important lesson to learn.
So what about VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas)? VSO are the agency who placed me in this role, but I do not actually work for them. VSO are an international development NGO working through volunteers, but once placed, the volunteers are entirely answerable to their local employer. However, there is a VSO office in Fajara in The Gambia, with whom I have some contact. They were responsible for my induction programme when I arrived. They provide medical assistance through the British High Commission (for which I was grateful following my road accident in March). My mail goes to the VSO office (please keep writing – it is heartening to receive your letters (and parcels!)). And I enjoy the support of meeting socially with other VSO volunteers (from Holland, Canada, the UK, the Philippines, India and Kenya) working in three programme areas (Education, Disability and Rural Livelihoods).
Just In The Gambia 