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Momodou
Denmark
11832 Posts |
 Posted - 06 Nov 2008 : 18:51:20
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GAMBIA: Poor teaching quality slows education progress
At 1,200 Delasi (US$50) 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.”
BANJUL, 4 November 2008 (IRIN) - 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.
Read more at: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81285
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