Mr. Sidibeh,
I do not think the election results will make any difference to my 
"grand dream..". As far as I can tell (from party manifestos), none of 
these parties are really dreaming "..put man on the moon.." kind of 
dream when it comes to developing human resources in the Gambia. It had 
been the mindset since Jawara days that, given the size of the economy, 
one would be inviting trouble by expanding University education so 
quickly. While much has changed since Jawara it does not look that 
mindset is totally discarded.

I believe that our dependence on agriculture as the backbone of our 
economic development has not worked and things ought to change. After 
many years observing the Gambia, I have to come to conclude that our 
best bet is to put our meager resources into the education basket. While 
current the education policy of expanding basic education (girls 
education in particular), and the university will go a long way to 
change things, the scale and pace of things are not impressive. To 
change things a big way we need not only dream big but act big when it 
comes university education. Currently only 2 percent of our 15 to 24 
year olds have post secondary education, despite 47% of them attaining 
some level of secondary education. It means that remaining 45% (over 
100,000) may leave school without any hope of continuing their education 
or finding a better paying job given their level of preparation. Thus 
the mass drift to Babilon. From what we know very few of these will go 
back to the farm. Even in the first world, the educated youth leave the 
countryside for the properous cities as soon as they complete basic 
education cycle. Unfortunately basic cycle education is not sufficient 
training thus the need for rapid expansion of the university program. 
 From the current few hundred per year to 2500 in 2010 and 5000 per year 
in 2015.

The funding, like any development project in the Gambia (agric or 
telecoms or others) must come from external or internal borrowing. Some 
ways to make it pay will be the government to go the extra mile and help 
secure temporary work visa for graduands who serve 2 years in a 
"national teaching corps" - Americorps kind of sheme. In addition, 
temporary workers will be required to pay a percentage of their earnings 
to the Gambian people. An added benefit of working temporarily working 
abroad is they earn a few Euros for themselves and most important of all 
learn to become experts in their professions. 

Mr. Sidibeh with over 10,000 graduates in 10 years the Gambia would not 
need to depend on a few soon-to-retire gray-headed blokes (myself 
included) to educate them about whether how to grow peanuts, millet or rice?


Malanding Jaiteh





Momodou S Sidibeh wrote:

>  Dr. Jaiteh,
>
>  Playing dice with these elections could seem to be a very easy 
> pastime. But I am just wandering what will happen to your "grand dream 
> for a grand plan for education" if the APRC remains in power.
>
>  Perhaps even you, like me, will take refuge in Sister Jabou Joh's 
> very cogent arguments. But perhaps better still, is to appeal to 
> Sister Jabou, Dr. Alhaji Jeng (who was once director of NARI (?)- 
> National Agricultural Research Institute) and you good self to educate 
> the rest of us about what has been wrong with gambian agriculture 
> since independence. Why does food security remain an unattainable 
> goal? Most of us understand that it is a combination of factors, but 
> the combined expertise of your trio will provide any government, and 
> the rest of us, with answers that seem to have eluded generations of 
> Gambians.
>
>  Cheers,
>  Sidibeh
>
>  Well, let Gambian academics and professionals in various fields look 
> at our country and produce ideas about what can be done to change 
> things for the better: Information technology, economics, medicine, 
> engineering, education. etc. Perhaps we can rethink other uses for 
> these debate forums? That might be a dream too, but at least it is one 
> that we can ourselves affect.
>  What do you think,....all???
>
>  sidibeh
>
> ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
> To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the 
> Gambia-L Web interface
> at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html
>
> To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: 
> http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
> To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
> [log in to unmask]
> ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
>

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤