By Albert Kamony,
UTG School of Education
Since time immemorial, Africa has had one of the best systems of education. Our people lived in well-organised societies where they taught their children the norms and customs of the community. This continued until the western education was introduced by the Europeans. A new system of education, which gears towards the promotion of a foreign culture, was put in place, bringing segregation and underdevelopment to our country. The aim of introducing this new system was to educate a few to enable them to read and write so that they could serve as mediators between the Europeans and the native people. The colonial government was not ready to educate the majority or provide the few it chose to educate with highly proficient lessons where they could develop skills or think critically. They gave them limited education that did not match their economic, political, and societal needs.
Our modern society is full of young, vibrant, and smart people who are struggling to explore their potentials with the limited technology available. They find it difficult to know what they really want to be in the future because the colonial curriculum is still in place. The curriculum still includes topics and subtopics that are not relevant to the needs of students. I can remember going through my father’s achieves one day, and I saw his junior school science exercise book. What I found in that book kept me thinking for a while. I saw his drawing of an agama lizard, a cockroach and a toad. Then I said to myself, “this is the same agama lizard, cockroach and toad that I studied in my junior school.” These are things that I have been interacting with since when I was younger but they did not change my life. They did not as well add value to my persuitt of a better technological knowledge but only kept me running away from their scary appearance (nuchal crest). This is not what those who introduced our school curriculum are teaching their children in their countries. It is high time our curriculum is fashioned in a way that will enable students to use technology to satiate their societal and economic needs.
Practical skills are important tools to the life of students. Our education system is mandated on the 6-3-3 plan. This means one has to spend six years in primary school, three years in junior school, and three years in senior school. In all these years, students do not have the opportunity to learn skills because the school curriculum makes them believe that they should be office workers upon completion due to what they were taught in school. For a person to develop a life changing skill, one should start shaping his or her technical potentials at a younger age; so that, the time he or she finishes senior school, the person will be self-reliant. We want to see our students inventing fast moving jets, robots, installing and using sophisticated technologies in agriculture to meet our unlimited demands for food and raw materials.
Moreover, the curriculum does not aid the promotion of critical thinking. It trains students to completely depend on what is given but not what comes from their own minds. That is why our students cannot invent new knowledge; hence, any time they provide something relevant they are asked to give references. This does not only limit them from thinking critically but also discourages them from inventing new philosophies. The curriculum should support critical thinking to enable students to develop independent minds so that they could make good decisions regarding their future.
The Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education should set the curriculum to fit the culture of Gambians and promote it. Students tend to embrace the western culture more than their own. This is a major factor affecting our society today because students are taught about their rights, which they abuse all the time. You see them engaging in bad acts all in the name of children’s right. If we have our country at heart, then the need for a better curriculum should be our priority. This will bring more development, improve technology and make the future of the young ones optimistic. We have a country to mend and develop. Therefore, I call on all stakeholders to set and apply a curriculum that will enable students to fit our society, think critically and prepare them for the future.
