Importance
1. Importance of Education
Education is vital to the development of a country. It is vital because of its instrumental role in enabling individuals to be skilled so that they can be productive for their own economic well-being and that of society as a whole. Education is also vital as an end in itself because it helps individuals develop their faculties, increase their awareness, develop critical thinking skills, and become better citizens, among other benefits. Therefore, a society that lacks educated people is a poor society in ways beyond being income-poor.
The importance of education is even more acute today because the world is increasingly becoming a knowledge-based economy. This is characterized by the digital economy and the emergence of artificial intelligence in all spheres of our lives. This means that modern economies are increasingly driven by information and technology and require highly skilled labor. Without a well-functioning education sector that equips citizens with relevant skills, our country risks being left behind as the rest of the world is transformed.
Another reason why education needs special attention is that The Gambia has a young population. The median age in the country is 20 years, with more than two-thirds of the country between the ages of 15 and 30. For such a young population, one of the key focuses of policymakers should be to equip these people (mostly youths) with skills so that they can be ready to take leading roles in the future.
The education sector therefore needs special attention and requires a major reboot in The Gambia. Both the quality and quantity of education are in dire straits. Important targets in terms of outputs and outcomes are severely lacking. The quality of education is not only failing to register the needed progress; it is deteriorating. It is a common sight to encounter high school graduates in the country who can barely construct a grammatically correct sentence. The little progress observed in access is not increasing fast enough.
2. Current State of Affairs
The current state of affairs in education is characterized by low levels of learning, lack of sustained growth in enrollment, and poor infrastructure, among other issues.
a. Poor learning outcomes: The key outcome for education is learning. By this measure, the education sector is failing. The degree of failure is so high and persistent that it is best characterized as a crisis. Only about 12.5% of students between 7 and 14 years possess reading skills, and 3.5% have the required numeracy skills for their age group.
The National Assessment Tests (NAT), which are used by MOBSE to evaluate grades 3, 5, and 8 students, show depressing results. Less than a third of grade 3 students achieve mastery in English and mathematics in the NAT. Less than a quarter of grade 5 students achieve mastery in mathematics and English. Less than half of the grade 8 students reach minimum requirements in English, mathematics, and science.
The percentage of students who achieve at least four credits in the core subjects at the senior secondary school level is less than 10%. The implications of these results are startling. It means that in a given year, the number of students who graduate from our Gambian schools is not actually enough to fill the spaces at tertiary-level institutions in the country. This problem underscores the importance of having close linkage between basic education and tertiary education policies.
Another indication of the poor state of Gambian education is comparing the performance of our students with peer countries on the same examination. Recent West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results provide such an opportunity. The percentages of Gambian grade 12 students receiving a grade of "credit" in 2019 in English, mathematics, and science were 11.5%, 20.6%, and 5.4%, respectively. In the same year, the percentages of Ghanaian students receiving a grade of "credit" in English, mathematics, and science were 48.9%, 65.3%, and 63.2%, respectively. This difference is massive and clearly shows the degree to which our education system has collapsed.
This shows that Gambian students are leaving our high schools without gaining the requisite level of knowledge. Without gaining the necessary foundation, it becomes almost impossible to build a skilled workforce, which is necessary to accomplish any work, whether in the private sector or in public service.
b. Overall low enrollment rates: Despite progress made in enrollment, The Gambia has yet to achieve targets in universal enrollment in basic and secondary education. While enrollment rates are high at the primary level, these are not sustained at middle school (upper basic) and high school (senior secondary) levels. Completion rates at the upper basic level are 56% for boys and 75% for girls in 2023. At the senior secondary school level, the completion rates for boys and girls are 55% and 54%, respectively. Gross enrollment rates at the tertiary level for males and females are 3% and 2%, respectively, in 2023. These gross tertiary enrollment rates are significantly lower than the African average of 9.4%.
Despite the seemingly high enrollment rates, The Gambia is still a society where the average years of schooling of adults is under 6 years. In other words, the median individual has a primary school level education. Another way to underscore this point is to note that the percentage of the working-age population with at least a primary level education is less than 50%. This low level of formal education signifies low skill attainment, which has a significant effect on labor market productivity.
current state
c. Inequality in Access and Quality: The Gambia has gender parity in education at the Lower Basic and Upper Basic levels. However, there is a gender gap at the Senior Secondary School level. One reason for this inequality at the higher level is higher drop-out rates for girls at the senior secondary school level.
Another dimension of inequality is the lower level of access and poorer quality infrastructure in rural areas relative to urban areas in The Gambia. Completion rates at the Senior Secondary School level in urban areas are twice those of rural areas in The Gambia. Performance of students in regions 5, 6, and 7 is significantly lower than those in regions 1 and 2. Furthermore, the completion rate gap between income quintiles in The Gambia is huge, with a differential of 40 percentage points between the fifth (67%) and first quintile (15%) in senior secondary school completion rates.
d. Poor Educational Infrastructure: Despite significant growth in school construction, there is a major shortage of schools. This is evident in the number of schools with 2 shifts (i.e., one group of students attending school between 8am and 2pm and another group attending between 2pm and 6pm). This is not conducive to learning since it significantly shortens the average contact hours between students and teachers. Another indicator of poor school infrastructure is the high average class size in the country at all levels of schooling, the limited number of well-stocked libraries, and the lack of well-equipped science laboratories.
e. Poor Teacher Remuneration: While there have been some improvements in teachers’ salaries, compensation is still far lower than it should be given the rising cost of living. Many Gambian teachers are forced to engage in significant amounts of private tutoring to make ends meet. A teacher who is in a hurry to conduct their private lessons is not a teacher who will be very focused on teaching students in classrooms.
f. Higher Teacher Absenteeism: The Gambia has significant teacher absenteeism. In 2022, a UNICEF study found that 14% of teachers in primary schools were absent at least once a week. There are many reasons for these absences, including health issues, transportation problems, and lack of monitoring, among others.
Intervention
3. Current government intervention in education
The current government's intervention in education has been a continuation of Jammeh's policies and practices in the sector. The most prominent manifestation of this has been the continuation of having two separate ministries of education: the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MOBSE) and the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science, and Technology (MOHERST). The current government blindly continued this arrangement without any reflection. This is highly inefficient. It duplicates many positions in administration, leading to a bloated education bureaucracy without any corresponding gain in learning outcomes. It prevents integration in the education sector by creating a disconnect between education policies at the secondary and tertiary levels.
The budget allocation for the education sector is almost completely directed to recurrent expenditures, with only a small fraction reserved for development expenditures. The construction of schools has continued but not at a pace sufficient to reduce class size or eliminate double-shifting of students. This means overcrowding of schools, which also contributes to the aforementioned low-quality education. Poor teacher retention remains a problem, partly as a result of low remuneration and insufficient training. The government's policy on higher education is focused completely on quantity at the expense of quality. For instance, there are plans to build more tertiary institutions when the existing University of The Gambia (UTG) is highly starved of resources. As a consequence, the UTG is a university with student concerns that are largely unaddressed.
4. Solutions in the education sector
Our government would give the education sector the requisite attention it needs. This requires addressing the budget needs of the sector, emphasizing learning, properly compensating teachers, and reforming the UTG, among other measures.
a. Rationalizing the education budget: Education should be a priority sector for The Gambia given its importance for economic development and enlightenment at a personal level. This importance should be reflected in budget allocation. The first problem is with the composition of the budget for the education sector. On average, less than 5% of the government's annual budget goes into development, with the remaining share in excess of 95% going into recurrent expenditures. With such a large share going into recurrent expenditures, there is very little investment that is essential to provide improvements in access and learning. The PPA-led government will ensure there is a significant increase in the development budget for education to reflect the needed increase in required investment in the sector.
The total budget for education will be rationalized to reflect its importance to the country's development. The country's share of GDP that goes to education is less than 4%; given the critical nature of this sector, as well as compared to other African countries, this needs to increase. This increase will be needed to improve compensation for teachers so as to attract a greater number of people to the teaching field. It will also be needed for the increased investment to ensure that key access targets are reached.
b. Increased compensation for teachers and incentives: One of the key determinants of quality in education is teachers. Capable individuals need to be recruited to the teaching field and retained there. For that to happen, compensation for teachers needs to be attractive and competitive. The PPA leadership understands that without attractive compensation, recruitment will be difficult, and those who are already employed will not be well motivated. Achieving this would require increasing the budget as mentioned above and rebalancing recurrent and development budgets. This would also help address high teacher absenteeism.
Proper teacher compensation would also include improving amenities in teachers' quarters to incentivize and facilitate the posting of teachers in remote locations. The living quarters of teachers in most rural areas are dilapidated, which saps the motivation of teachers in those areas. This will be immediately addressed by the PPA-government.
c. Merit-based selection for further studies: Skills upgrading for working adults in the civil service is highly important. Indeed, many ministries provide further study opportunities for their staff. There is currently no systematic process for how staff are selected. In numerous cases, staff are selected based on connections to those in positions of power. This needs to change. The PPA-led government will immediately institute a merit-based selection method that would be transparent and objective. In-service training and other forms of capacity building programs are important and need to be fit for purpose.
d. Continuous Assessment of Learning Outcomes: The key goal of education is ensuring that students learn. Therefore, mechanisms need to be present to ensure that this central goal remains front and center. Currently, the only ways to assess quality of learning through student performance before graduation are the GABECE and the NAT. To truly gauge education quality consistently and effectively, the PPA-led government will ensure that metrics are tested at each grade so that alarming deviations from targets can be caught early and remedied.
e. Reforming the UTG: The flagship university in the country is the UTG. This university should play a major role in providing quality tertiary education. It is not currently fulfilling its role due to several challenges. There are far too many degrees offered without the corresponding resources in lecturers and materials. Degree programs offered will be re-evaluated to ensure relevance to our Gambian context. There is a huge amount of inefficiency at the UTG, which is manifested in students going through excessive procedures just to register for courses. There is a major governance problem and frequent conflicts between administrators and lecturers, which limits the time they spend addressing student concerns. The PPA-led government will ensure that the concerns of university students remain front and center at the UTG. This will require investments in hard and soft infrastructure to address both scholastic and social needs. Scholarship opportunities for deserving students will be increased to expand the accessibility of tertiary education in the country.
f. Creating further study opportunities for UTG Graduates: Gambian students need training in more fields of study than the country can currently provide. Many Gambian students, through their own initiatives, have been able to obtain scholarships to further their studies. This is not enough. There is considerable scope for the government to provide structure so that robust assistance is provided to qualified students to gain admissions and scholarships in fields that are relevant to the country's development needs. The PPA-led government will ensure that such a program is instituted, particularly for graduates of the UTG, so that qualified students are granted the opportunities they need.
g. Policy integration in the education sector: The PPA leadership understands that the fragmentation of the education sector at a policy level will be addressed immediately as it is inefficient and wasteful. In our government, there will be a single Ministry of Education, thereby creating an integrated overall education policy and removing needless and costly bloat in the education bureaucracy.
solutions
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