Trusting in scholastic achievements

Trust Bank (Gambia) Limited has for sometime now been promoting the culture of academic excellence through its annual scholarship awards to outstanding students in the Gambia Basic Education Certificate Examination. Each year, ten students are given the sum of five thousand dalasis each to take care of their educational needs - books, tuition fees, uniform, etc.

"We, the Trust Bank, are passionately committed to the promotion of quality education as a prerequisite to national development," Mr Dodou Nyang, marketing and sales manager of the bank, said. He is exactly right because no nation can rise on ignorance. If we are serious about advancement, then we have to commit more of our resources to the training of our children, as Trust Bank has been doing. We believe that money spent on giving quality education to our children is money well spent because they will in due course use their knowledge and skills for the development of the nation.

It is not as if Trust Bank is the only corporate entity that provides scholarships to students in this country. We saw during the convocation of the University of the Gambia that there are other organisations and individuals who are also committed to giving every child who has the potential a chance to better themselves. Quantum Associates is one of them. And there was also the Dr Lenrie Peters Prize for the best graduating English student. But Trust Bank has been consistent over the years.

Besides the scholarships, Trust Bank should sponsor educational programmes on television and radio. For instance, they should identify veteran teachers who are good at the core subject areas - English language, mathematics, the sciences, and then buy airtime on GRTS to have them teach these subjects. If it is well organised, it will enable our children to spend quality time with the TV and radio.

If it is possible, they should also get the telecommunications operators - AFRICELL, GAMCEL, and COMIUM, to use the mobile phone to stimulate interest in learning by organising quizzes in the core subject areas. And successful winners should be handsomely rewarded. There is too much pandering to the lower and more ephemeral things of life in our society; we should devote more time to the matters of the soul.

In the long history of the world, the greatest and richest nations are those that have given pride of place to learning. America is what America is today because they spend sleepless nights studying; Japan is great because they treasure knowledge, China and India are on the rise today because they don't joke with knowledge acquisition. We can't have it otherwise. It is this culture of progress through knowledge that Trust Bank (Gambia) Ltd has set in motion in this country. It is a progressive step.