Former Gambia College Lecturers' Trial Opens

The trial of Lamin BT Sanyang and Abdoulie Baldeh, former lecturers at GambiaCollege, opened on Monday before Magistrate Lamin George of the Banjul Magistrates Court.

The duo is standing trial for allegedly giving false information to the Office of the President, that the Principal of the college, Alieu Badara Senghorr, and Ms Isatou Ndow, Head of School of Education, committed malpractices and unlawfully terminated their services with the said college.

In her testimony PW1, Ms Isatou Ndow, told the court that she is a civil servant working with GambiaCollege and that she headed the School of Education at the college. She said that as the head of School of Education, she co-ordinated the activities and programmes of the said department at the college. She added that all the teacher training such as Primary Teachers Certificate, High Teacher Certificate and the Early year training programme are been co-ordinated by the school of Education. She identified the accused persons as being former lecturers at Gambia College School of Education, adding that Mr Sanyang taught English while Mr Baldeh taught Science.

Further testifying, Ms Ndow told the court that she was appointed Head of School of Education at GambiaCollege in March 2005. She stated that when she took over as the Head of School of Education, she found that the 1staccused, Mr. Sanyang, was having problem with HTC students and that he had refused to teach for sometime. She revealed that the students wrote a petition letter complaining and she called for the accused so as to talk the matter over with him, noting that the accused subsequently pledged to resume teaching but failed to. Consequently, she went on, she wrote to the Principal recommending that action be taken to address the situation as the students were still upset. The Principal, she adduced, thereafter wrote to the accused but he still refused to teach, thus necessitating the stoppage of his teaching allowance. She said Mr. Sanyang persisted in the refusal to teach and subsequently his service was terminated with GambiaCollege.

The case was at that juncture adjourned to 27thAugust 2008.