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Authors allege school principals ‘undermining’ book printing contract

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By Tabora Bojang

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The Association of Gambian Authors for Schools (AGAS) has added its voice to the ongoing row over the book printing contract government awarded to the national printer GPPC to print books for Gambian schools.

The Gambia Teachers Union last week called for a review of the contract saying among other things that schools are studded with “inadequate number of copies, limited subject coverage, and lack of distribution capacity.”

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But according the authors association, these claims are unfounded.

In a statement shared with The Standard AGAS argued: “The Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, MoBSE, came up with this arrangement or contract to put an end to waste of limited resources when monies were paid to school principals to buy textbooks for their students which were not supplied by principals in the appropriate manner”.

The authors further explained that MoBSE resorted to the national printing corporation (GPPC), legally mandated by an act of parliament to print all learning materials in government schools, and the author’s association, to address the problem.

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”The arrangement was discussed and endorsed by the vice president Muhammed B Jallow and a number of cabinet ministers such as Baboucarr Bouy, Seedy Keita, Ebrima Sillah and former minister Claudiana Cole with a view to better utilise the scarce resources and in the best interest of students.

So MoBSE was asked to forward correct statistics of copies needed in all schools by GPPC before starting the job and school principals were contacted to forward their individual school enrollments in all subject areas. But this was never done and up to today, GPPC could not lay hands on the correct statistics for printing.The refusal of school principals to provide correct statistics of copies needed by their schools was a deliberate act to undermine the project to fail from the inception,” the authors said.

They added that “for the distribution of textbooks to schools, as per the contract between MoBSE and GPPC, all textbooks are to be deposited at the regional offices, where school heads will collect for their schools.

“This was done 100 percent. Delivery of books to schools from the regional offices is not in the contract and shouldn’t be done by GPPC. Again, some principals refused to collect textbooks from the regional offices some actually received textbooks from regional offices but refused to distribute them to students. What is the GTU doing about that? Are they concerned with poor students in public schools?” the authors association queried.

The authors also clarified that there is no restriction in the use of other textbooks outside the arrangement in schools, adding that the issue of non-coverage of syllabus is also “baseless.”

“All AGAS’ materials were reviewed and approved by Curriculum, Research, Evaluation and Education Directorate (CREDD) of MoBSE. As we speak, all subjects taught in schools are ready for printing and delivery to schools,” it stated. 

The association averred that the arrangement will among others help government “save millions of dalasis it spends on buying” books from Nigeria and Ghana for senior schools. 

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