The
twenty-two years of the Jammeh regime and its aftermath have provided the
perfect theater for the study of the impact of political literacy and civic
mindedness on political engagements of the Gambian citizenry in matters of
national development. The long and brutish rule of the Jammeh-government was
aided by many factors, one of which is a severe lack of civic mindedness among
the Gambian population. That lack of knowledge of the political process and
citizens’ roles in that is arguably the most critical of the factors that had
disarmed Gambian citizens in calling to order the political calamity that has
claimed the lives of many Gambians and squandered significant resources of our
land. This very problem of civic illiteracy has, in fact, begun plaguing the
future of the country and can easily stunt the growth of our nascent democracy.
In
the new Gambia, it is, unfortunately, the vain wrangling and lack of a
constructive dialogue
among
Gambians in matters of national development that have caught the attention of a
group of Gambian scholars dubbed the Interdisciplinary Committee on Civic
Education and Critical Thinking in The Gambia. The committee has members who
reside in The Gambia and across the diaspora. Its purpose is to engender a serious
discussion concerning the state and need for civic education in The
Gambia. One of the first tasks of the
group was to research about the current state of affairs of civic education in
the country. Before we delve into our discussion of findings, it is important
to unpack the broad categories of skill-set that constitute the concept of
civic education we have applied in our analysis.
Thompson
(2013) offers a theoretical framework that demarcated seven interrelated but
distinct boundaries within civic education, viz: political literacy, voter education, rights
education, citizenship education, peace education, education in democracy and
development education. These are the boundaries of civic education we have
adopted in examining the state of civic education in The Gambia. Each of those categories of civic education
in Thompson’s conceptualization is defined below.
Political
literacy facilitates knowledge acquisition in the practice of politics; it
centers on the acquisition of political power and the use of political power to
distribute services for individual and community development. Voter education
deals with the acquisition of knowledge about the voting processes and centers
on the questions of why the citizen should exercise his/her right to vote and
when voting should take place. Rights
education focuses on individual and collective rights. In that education,
citizens are sensitized on their rights and responsibilities which they should
enjoy, assert and claim when they are denied those rights. Peace education
embodies the value of peace in sustaining our global humanity. Education in a
democracy is the study of the quality of governance or the understanding of the
principles and practice of democratic participation. Citizenship education centers
on the rights and obligations of the citizen and dwells on the concerns of
nationalism and patriotism. Lastly, development education is geared towards
equipping citizens with the skills and positive attitudes and values to
contribute positively towards sustainable development processes.
Thompson’s
(2013) framework is instructive as it allows us to see where our deficit lies
in building a generation of a civic-minded population and perhaps areas that
have profited from the existing avenues that provide civic education in The
Gambia. Our review of the existing documents and programs concerning civic
education in The Gambia illuminated a situation of critical deficiency of
programs and avenues for the propagating of civic mindedness. The primary documents
that formed the center stone of our analysis were the National Council for
Civil Education (NCCE) Act, the Action Aid Human Rights Approach to Development
Handbook and the Social Studies and Government curricula of Junior and Senior
Secondary Schools. Committee members also include civic (voter) educators in
past elections who offered their reflections in our analysis. It is important
to note here that PDOIS has been taking a leading role in fostering a
civic-minded population through their civic education program. However, our
review did not cover their curriculum due to lack of access.
The
Gambia’s 1997 constitution gave birth to the establishment of the NCCE Act,
mandated to launch a civic education program to enable the political awareness
and participation of citizens in the political process. The council is largely
in the shadows but somewhat active during election cycles. However, its work is restricted principally
to voter education. An insider source
intimated that the institution is severely underfunded and thus, it is quite
unproductive in executing its mandates. While there is no available empirical
study on the impact of voter education on the political consciousness of the
voter population in The Gambia, the benefits from such endeavors are most
likely not significant. Voter educators in our team reveal that due to the
issue of limited funding for voter education, there is the problem of coverage
as such programs do not reach all Gambians and particularly those who live in
the rural most areas of the country.
Gambians
insensitivity to voter education further compounds that problem. Evidently, the
National Civic Education Council only supports voter education in its limited
efforts which, is just one of the many aspects of civic education.
The
Action Aid Handbook: A Human Rights Approach to Development we reviewed falls
under Thompson’s civic education topology of right education. The handbook is
for development practitioners, however, and it provides the framework with
which development workers can address and integrate human rights into their
work. The guide offers a conceptual
framework that explores human rights, its development, legal basis and the
essential foundations of a human right approach to development. The central
argument in the handbook is that dominant development method tends to be
structural (excludes beneficiaries) rather than people-centered and hence the
need to empower recipients of programs to participate in the critical stages of
donor-funded programs for sustainable development.
The
Handbook is required reading in one of the Development Studies courses offered
at the University of The Gambia.
The
curriculum of the Junior Secondary School (JSS) Social and Environmental
Studies (SES) outlines civic education topics such as citizenship, political
systems, government, and governance. These areas, if taught in a heuristic
manner would allow students to develop and exercise their knowledge of the
fundamentals of citizenship, right, and responsibilities. Given the undemocratic
environment that characterized the twenty-two years of the Jammeh regime,
however, it is highly unlikely that the pedagogical and instructional
strategies for teaching those topics were focused on raising students’ critical
awareness of their rights and responsibilities in the democratic process.
Further,
the lack of teaching, learning, mastery, and application of key civic duties
and responsibilities as part of the fundamental aspect of basic schooling is
evident in the lack of a separate and specialized subject that offers a
combination of the different components of civic education outlined above.
The
Senior Secondary School (SSS) Government syllabus has few components of civic
education, addressed in the Thompson’s framework but falls short of a comprehensive
civic education curriculum. The curriculum partly meets the criterion of
political literacy in its encompassing of basic political concepts such as
power, authority and their sources. It
does not, however, adequately address the critical component of the role of
those in authority to provide public services. Also, the aspect of rights
education is partially met by the syllabus in its focus on the rule of law,
human rights, etcetera. However, a mere conceptual knowledge is not sufficient,
and particularly when right holders are not informed of their rights and civic
duties to question the policy decisions of those in power.
Voter
education is for the most part covered in the curriculum. Citizenship education
features in the syllabus as well, but the particular means to manifesting
nationalism and patriotism are striking missing. Further, peace education and
democracy education is just treated as concepts with no reference to
governance, and the component of development education is largely missing from
the syllabus. It is important to note that government is a subject taught at
the SSS level only. Considering that Gambia has a basic schooling of nine
years, many of the country’s youth leaving school at the 9th grade or below do
not come across the few components of civic education contained in the SSS
Government syllabus. Furthermore, Government as a subject is mostly catered to
students in the Arts stream. Therefore, many students who specialize outside of
that discipline often lack the opportunity to be introduced to the topics of
citizenship and civic rights and responsibilities.
While
our review is not by any means conclusive, the evidence on the ground regarding
the state of civic education in The Gambia suggests an overall dearth of the
civic literacy environment. There is a conspicuous lack of avenues for the
provision of a comprehensive and critical civic education to young Gambians as
part of their formative development and formal schooling entitlements.
We
argue that the consequences of an ill-informed and civic-undereducated
population are the reproduction and display of lack of civic knowledge- a
problem that could severely affect the development of a democratic society. The
remedy to that civic illiteracy and civic disempowerment is not far-fetched. A
solution can be found in rethinking about the significant social, political and
economic returns the nation can accrue from its investment in the civic
education of its citizens and particularly for our young ones who are the
beacon of hope for our country’s future. The benefits from such endeavors are
immense.
As
noted earlier such efforts will create a socio-political consciousness, which
is a sine qua non for sustaining the fundamentals of the social contract
between the citizens and the state. It
is only through this process that a “Bantaba” for a national dialogue can
ensue, thus engendering a more mature and constructive political discourse for
fostering citizen-government partnership. In addition to the potential social
and political benefits from a civic-minded population, political stability
founded on a sound governance culture and the rule of law are essential forces
of attraction to foreign investors.
The
need for a civic-minded society in boosting foreign investments cannot be
over-emphasized. Countries such as Senegal (in our back yard) and Rwanda are
classic cases where strong civil societies among other reforms have led to a
significant investment flows from foreign direct investments.
Our
search for fair-mindedness and intellectual responsibility for the progressive
society we are hoping to build in the new Gambia can only be realized when our
societal and school curricula inculcate in the minds of our young citizens some
critical and relevant mode of thinking. Civic education as a viable investment
for national development is the principal missing instrument in our toolbox for
our post-Jammeh political renaissance and which the government of The Gambia
must pay attention to among other national concerns as we leap forward into the
future.
Please
kindly direct all rejoinders regarding this piece to cedlgambia@gmail.com
