The five-day meeting which holds rotationally among regions every two months has been described as “the most practical monitoring tool” for the ministry in the implementation of all the projects in relation to quality education in The Gambia.
In her keynote address, the Minister of Basic and Secondary Education, Fatou Lamin Faye, described the CCM as a forum featuring large representation of people from her ministry and their partners to learn from one another and ponder on issues crucial to achieving the Education For All intiative and MDGs.
She said: “We have seen the participation of people down to the school management committees. We cannot get information that is authentic from any other source than from the horse’s mouth.”
Thanks to strong partnership between the ministry and her partners, the mister acknowledged that thorough sensitisation of the public on the School Improvement Grant (SIG) project which aimed at reducing household expenditure on education is working well at the lower basic school level.
She disclosed that the ministry will extend the project to the upper basic school level in the 2014-2015 academic year as promised.
The governor of Lower River Region, Salieu Puye, welcomed the participants and praised them for the idea of conducting such a meeting to identify problems on the way of teaching and learning and solutions accordingly.
“As all schools belong to communities their involvement in the manning and managing the schools is important. I will add my own voice to the school committees in order to reactivate school farms and gardens to supplement the feeding programme in schools in my region,” he said.
In his introductory remark, Baboucarr Boye, permanent secretary, Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, outlined that the meeting will start with a review of the minutes of the previous CCM and hear any progress made on their action while making recommendations.
He added that the representatives of all the schools visited during the last CCM in North Bank Region will make presentations on their response to the recommendations after which participants will move on to visit schools within the Lower River Region to assess their progress.
By Ebrima Bah in Mansakonko
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