A dispatch made available to journalists states: “In The Gambia, despite the fact that good progress has been made in expanding access to education across all levels of the schooling system, particularly basic education, the quality and relevance of education has increasingly become a matter of concern. It is constrained by a shortage of well-trained teachers, inadequate teaching materials in schools, [and] weak management of schools as well as difficulty in retaining qualified education personnel.”
It adds: “It is reported that, worldwide, 250 million children many of them from disadvantaged backgrounds not learning the basics. In The Gambia, the recently concluded Early Grade Reading Assessment and Early Grade Mathematics Assessments results are revealing the low level of students learning outcomes. The EFA Goal 6 that deals with quality is far from being achieved. It is obvious that teachers, among many other factors, contributed to this critical learning crisis in The Gambia.”
According to the dispatch, the GMR report shows lack of attention to education quality and its failure to reach the marginalised as contributing to the learning crisis. It, however, states that the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education is working tirelessly to address issues related to teacher quality and quantity.
It further states the ministry will recruit an additional 6,297 qualified primary school teachers by the end of the year.
]]>
