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.
