Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to situate my research into The Gambian context, because in any nation the educational system and curriculum in particular are influenced by the economy, cultures and political history of that nation. Section one reviews how The Gambia became a British colony and explores the colonial administrative and political residues for policy making. Section two examines the introduction of Western education system focusing on the Missionary schooling introduced in the colonial era. Section three describes the CP making process in an historical context of The Gambia, focusing on the evolution of policy making and providing an official account of the contemporary CP making process. Section four identifies the historical and contemporary key players in the CP making. Section five investigates the experiences and perceptions about CP in an historical context of The Gambia. Finally, curriculum reform initiatives in The Gambian history of CP making are discussed before concluding the chapter.
The discussions throughout the chapter draw on the relevant literature, the historical news papers, official records and documents obtained from The Gambia National Archives and the British Library. The Gambia is a former colony of Britain and it was during the colonisation period that Western schooling was introduced. The main reason for European attraction to The Gambia leading to colonisation is discussed next.
2.1 Colonisation and the Residual Policy Making Structures
My focus in this section is to investigate how factors have impacted upon the country‘s political and educational systems in the past to give rise to the current education system and the CP making process in existence today. Understanding the history of colonialism will enable me to examine the relationship between the past and present condition and in particular, to interpret the views of my research participants in relation to my study, aiming at a critical understanding of CP making from the perspectives of teachers and policy makers in relation to The Gambian BE programme.
Europeans were attracted to Africa via the information obtained from Arab geographers and cartographers about the apparent wealth of Africa (Gray, 1940). What was appealing about The Gambia was its river which ―proved one of the major avenues into West African hinterland‖ (Robin, 1981, p 1). The European merchants interested in slaves, hides, peppers, ivory and gold found the navigable river a suitable trade route for goods available in other parts of West Africa. The capital city of The Gambia (Banjul), formerly called Bathurst, then occupied by the Moribund Company of Merchants trading in Africa, was considered a satisfactory location for the control of commerce especially with the prohibition of the slave trade in 1807. Local courts and civil governments were established with a committee set up among merchants to advise the Commander of the British settlers in The Gambia in 1818. The city was formerly incorporated as part of the general administration of British West Africa in 1821 under the authority of the Governor of Sierra Leone in Freetown (the capital of Sierra Leone).
The Gambia remained under the Governor of Sierra Leone where the legislation relating to The Gambia was sent for revision and enactment by the legislative council until in 1843 when The Gambia became a separate colony with her own Governor, legislative and executive councils and judiciary (Robin, 1981). According to both Gray (1940) and Robin (1981), the modern boundaries of The Gambia were finally settled and laid down in the Anglo- French Convention of 1889.
The activities of British merchants and administrative control were centred in the capital and environment (Kombo St Mary) until in 1894 when ―… recognition was first given to the protectorate system by the passing (in 1894) of a Protectorate Ordinance‖ (Gray 1940, p 483), many parts of the interior of the country were declared British Protectorates. However, there were continued negotiations between the British and the traditional rulers until 1902 when the protectorate system was amended and the whole of The Gambia except the urban areas5 was placed under the protectorate system of administration (ibid., p 484). This resulted in The Gambia acceding to the British administrative system in which the Chiefs ruled the localities under the supervision of British colonial commissioners.
A measure of Gambian self-government was introduced after the Second World War. A legislative council formed in the 1950s with members elected by The Gambian people. The council‘s functions were to discuss the matters of the colony and to make laws. However, the Governor had the power to reject the laws because the Governor was responsible to the British Government for all his actions (Faal, 1997). There was also an Executive Council whose members were appointed by the Governor. The role of the Executive Council was to advise the Governor on administrative matters. These two councils (Legislative and Executive) constituted policy making bodies of The Gambia. The appointed Gambian Ministers worked alongside with the British officials with a view to training some Gambians for administrative positions. Full Gambian self government was achieved in 1963; independence achieved on the 18th February 1965 and The Gambia became a republic in 1970 when the Queen of England was no longer the Head of State of The Gambia (Faal, 1997). Constitutional rule and a multiparty democratic system were introduced but the two bodies (the Legislative and Executive) still remain important residual colonial structures for policy making.
The Gambia is currently governed by the 1997 constitution. The President is both the head of state and Government, elected for a five-year term with no limits of the number of terms. The law making body (legislature) consists of a 53 National Assembly (Parliamentary) seats of which 48 are elected as constituency representatives and five (5) appointed by the president (Republic of The Gambia, 1997). There is an independent judiciary while the executive consists of several Ministries headed by the Cabinet Ministers appointed by the president.
As part of the colonial residue, policy approval occurs at two stages. These are the levels of the Cabinet (office of the Governor in the colonial era) and the House of Parliament. The role of these bodies (Cabinet and House of Parliament) are very significant in the policy making because they have the power to approve or reject a policy and are responsible for the allocation of public funds to implement policy. The role played by the Governor in the colonial era is now played by the president but the system of policy approval remains as it was in the colonial era, thus a colonial residue.
The above history showed how the British government gradually controlled The Gambia. The coloniser‘s objective at the beginning was to control trade routes because the river served as a convenient avenue to access goods from other coasts of West Africa. The involvement of the British Government was originally to protect the interests of the British merchants. This was eventually developed into political control through indirect rule especially of the rural areas that is, maintaining and supervising the local rulers in their day to day administration. The main spheres of focus by the colonialists in the 19th century were governance, legislative and judiciary. Educating Gambians was not a priority of the colonialists (Faal, 1997). The Education Department was established in 1930 for the purpose of administering the government financial grant allocation (grant-in-aid) to the missionary providers of education and to act as inspectorate of schools (Government of the Republic of The Gambia, 1976). The subsequent sections will indicate how policy making became a significant government intervention via the Western education system which was introduced by the Christian missionaries.
2.2 Introduction of Western School System in The Gambia
The purpose of this section is to present a brief history of Western schooling in The Gambia with a view to examining the historical background of policy making in the country. Like many African countries, the school system as it is today was introduced in The Gambia by the Christian missionaries, in this case, the Society of Friends in the 19th Century. The first school was a girls’ school established in 1822 (Gray 1940) during the British colonisation followed by boys’ school. The schools were modelled along the lines of the British ―Charity Schools’ (Sarr, 1978, p 4).
As peculiar to religious organisations, the primary aims and objectives of the Missionaries were to recruit new converts in order to spread Christianity. The curriculum was therefore based on religious teaching, reading, some writing and ―arithmetic developed as by-products of the main aim‖ (ibid., p 4). Therefore, from the very beginning, the Western education in The Gambia was to enable students to read and understand the religious doctrines and to serve as native catechists and pastors. Ball (1984) for instance maintains that the purpose was not to educate Africans but to convert them to become ‗civilised‘ Christians. The role of schooling was to provide religious instruction and therefore ―religion pervades the whole curriculum‖ (ibid, p 118). Schooling was also elitist because it was used ―as an attraction and incentive for the Africans to allow their children to be subjected to the missionary influence‖ (p 119).
The attraction was in the form of creating reference groups of ‘educated’ Africans who, as school leavers, gained prospects for waged employment in the formal sector of the economy. Thus, a link between education and job prospects for school leavers was created from the beginning of Western schooling in The Gambia. As time went on the school system expanded with the establishment of district schools operated by the government and private schools which are still operated on the basis of the missionary school model. However, many parents resisted missionary education as ―they felt that sending their children to Mission schools would compromise their adherence to Islam‖ (Government of the Republic of The Gambia, 1976).
Islamic religious education existed in The Gambia for many centuries before the arrival of the Christian missionaries. The traditional Islamic schooling (Maglis) was grounded in many parts of the Muslim population. For instance, Gray (1940, p 328) maintains that the D‘Anville‘s map of 1751 indicates fifteen villages across many parts of The Gambia, called ―Morikunda and were evidently the residence of Moslem communities. The places registered on the map are still recognised as centres of traditional Islamic educational establishments called ―Maglish. Therefore, Christian missionary schooling was introduced in the context of a predominant Islamic society. The resistance of parents suggests ideological conflict over curriculum led to the production of a hybridised or new form of an education system, consisting of both Western and traditional Maglish characteristics – Madrassah.
2.2.1 Founding of Madrassah
Islamic scholars resented the Western education of the Christian Missionaries and struggled against the establishment of mission schools in their rural communities. In the colony, the Muslim elders in the city area organised themselves into an association and established a school called Mohammedan school in order to offer Islamic and Arabic curricula to Muslim children. The Madrassah curriculum may have emerged out of settlement of a struggle over curriculum amongst the Muslim community in the colony. The concept of Madrassah appeared in the mid 1937 when the managers of Mohammedan school decided to introduce other subjects along with the Islamic/Arabic curriculum. The managers faced oppositions by some members of the Muslim community in the colony who contended that the school should remain as it was, dismissing ideas about curriculum of a secular type. Mamour (1937) for example questions why Mohammedan school should remain stagnant, suggesting the school to become a Madrassah by incorporating science, commerce and other secular subjects in Mohammedan school.
Noting that the founders of the Islamic school laid a foundation upon which progress was to be made, Mamour (1937) argues that Muslim children attending the school were to learn two different foreign languages (Arabic and English). While Arabic was important from a religious point of view, English was necessary to provide ―daily bread and participation in politics. Madrassah therefore emerged as a hybridised institution consisting of foreign (Western) and local (indigenous) character. However, by 1938, Muhammedan school was unable to continue with the Islamic Arabic curriculum because of the lack of Arabic language teachers. The school resorted to providing secular instructions as the Christian missionary schools. In the 1960s, the Islamic scholars revived the Madrassah system which is now recognised as one of the institutional types providing BE in The Gambia.
I have so far discussed the introduction of Western education by the Christian missionaries and the indigenous resistance, resulting to the contemporary Madrassah system of education. The discussion offers the background to institutions from which my research participants were recruited. The next section focuses on CP making in an historical context.
2.3 Curriculum Policy (CP) Making in an Historical and Contemporary Contexts
The previous sections offer foundations for understanding the political and institutional contexts of policy making in The Gambia. This section draws on the suggestion made by Taylor et al (1997) about the need to understand the historical context in which policies appear as temporary settlements between competing views in order to analyse the development of educational policies. An historical understanding of CP making in The Gambia requires my examination of the evolution of policy making focusing on how the various policies were developed, taking into account the circumstance in which the policy making was carried out.
By 1937 the missionary providers of education were pleading for increased financial support from the colonial Government to operate their schools. Newspaper articles were published by educated Gambians (who might have had their education in the mission schools) in support the missionary requests for Government financial support (The Gambia Echo, 30th August 1937, p 6). A decision to take over the financial responsibility of the schools also meant Government control over the school curriculum. The following discussions show how the Government financial input and dissatisfaction with the missionary school curriculum created circumstances for colonial education policy making. My description of CP making in the Gambian historical context focuses on the evolution of the process of policy making from the colonial era up-to-date. A total of six policy making phases discussed are (a) The McMath Report of 1943, (b) The Baldwin Report of 1951 (c) The Development Programme in Education for The Gambia 1965 – 1975. Noting the primacy of CP planning in this study, I devote a separate section to the initiation of CP planning in The Gambia. (d) Education Policy 1975 – 1986, (e) Education Policy 1988 – 2003 and (f) Education Policy 2004 – 2015. My description of each policy phase includes the historical circumstances in which the policy making was carried out, the process adopted and the major curriculum issues of the policy.
2.3.1 The McMath Report of 1943
Policy making in the colonial era took many forms, such as despatched government letters or memoranda containing a government statement of decisions about the operation and conduct of educational activities in The Gambia. One early example was a despatch (No. 142) from the colonial governor, Sir Thomas Southorn‘s on the 7th November 1941 which provided the general strategic principles of the government intervention in mission schools (McMath, 1943). From the records of The Gambia National Archives, it is apparent that policy text development as it is known today was initiated in1943 when a Lady Education Officer in Sierra Leone (Dr. A.M. McMath) was ―lent‖ to The Gambia colony to conduct an investigation of Infant and Girls‘ Education and Teacher Training in The Gambia. The McMath Report was acceded to, and adopted as a policy (Sessional Paper No. 4/1943) to guide the development of education in The Gambia.
This policy proposed the colonial government to take over the financial responsibility for all mission schools in the colony (effected in 1945), regroup many of the small mission schools into sizable girls‘ and boys‘ schools, remove the schools from the immediate control of the missionaries and take on the responsibility of financing the schools. Moreover, the policy promulgated co-education in villages for economical staffing reasons and claimed that mixed schooling is unsuitable for the colony (the city and environs). This indicates an example of a contradiction in policy texts representing policy (Ball and Bowe 1992). The policy states that ―no progress will be made until segregation takes place and the girls are housed in girls‘ schools each with an all-female staff‖ (McMath 1943, p 4) and boys also in boys‘ schools. As such, girls were to be offered domestic science in their schools while boys‘ offered carpentry and Arts and Craft in their school. The next elaborated policy in the history of Gambian policy making was based on the report prepared by Baldwin (1951).
2.3.2 The Baldwin Report of 1951
Educated Gambian citizens were not passive in the political and policy process. Discussing the two way intercultural exchange between the colonisers and the colonised, Rizvi (2007) indicates that the colonised people cannot ―be regarded simply as innocent bystanders in their encounters with the hegemonic processes of colonization‖ (p 261). This was evident in the formation and activities of political movements by the educated Gambians. The founding of The Gambia National Development Union (GNDU) in 1917 was by Edward Frances Small, a discontented member of The Gambian educated community (Faal, 1997).
The GNDU conducted several activities opposing the colonial administration and some of their slogans represented ―blatant flaws in the administration of the central Government‖. According to Faal (1997), such movements together with the establishment of ―critical and independent political journalism‖ among Gambians, the first successful labour strike organised in 1929 by the Bathurst Trade Union were some of the sources of colonial resentment to missionary education. Trade unionism, political activities and news paper attacks on the colonial administration increased in the 1940s and ―reached its high point with the formation of the Gambia Workers‘ Union in 1959‖ (ibid. p 86). The Government branded the education system as the root cause of the challenges posed by the educated Gambians. The policy making process of the second elaborated education policy document shows how Government exercised control over curriculum through policy making.
Policy making was carried out by a Government appointed commission in 1950 led by T.H. Baldwin to make recommendations on the aims, scope, contents and methods of education in The Gambia. The development of this policy took one month (November 10th– December 10th) of a series of consultative meetings with officials, traditional rulers (chiefs), missionaries, teachers and interested members of the general public. According to Baldwin (1951), the commission conducted visits to a sample of schools in the consultation process.
The Baldwin Report advanced 36 recommendations for consideration as policy at the Legislative Council Meeting held on the 29th April 1952. A newspaper commentator on the eve of the Council meeting indicates that this ―report has received much attention from the general public‖ (The Gambia Ehco, April 28, 1952, p 4). One of the main reasons for such public interest in Baldwin‘s report was the incorporation of a recommendation for a secondary school in The Gambia. Moreover, out of the 36 recommendations, only one (Recommendation No. 20) was rejected at the Legislative Council meeting which states ―one independent, co-educational, non-denominational secondary school recommended for the Gambia‖ (Baldwin, 1951, p 39).
The rejection of this recommendation by the Legislative Council was a manifestation of Government resentment to secondary general education provided by the missionaries, power struggles and controversies in policy making as well as an apparent conspiracy
between the colonialist and their local elites. The result was a public outcry, expression of disappointment of people by their own representatives in the council. Excerpts in reaction to the rejection from a leading Newspaper at the time - The Gambia Echo indicate how the general public was disgusted about the decision. For example, the Editorial headline - My Rambling: legislative council says:
I should say the Report on the whole was thoroughly discussed by the council. But I think the crux of the whole question rested with the acceptance or rejecting Rec. 20, our Legislators …failed to grasp the point advanced … In rejecting Rec. 20; our Legislators have deprived us of the opportunity of benefiting by the services of such specialists in Education. We have lost a chance! When comes such another? Judge, oh ye [God] gods (May 5th, 1952, p 7)!
This shows how people were interested in having more secondary general education, how they felt disappointed and resisted the Legislative decision. Therefore, the colonised Gambians were not ―cultural dupes,‖ incapable of interpreting, accommodating, and resisting dominant discourses (Rizvi, 2007, p 261). Government was dissatisfied about the academic orientation of the curriculum on the grounds that the school graduates were demanding employment, equal rights and opportunity thus represented a threat to political stability. Moreover, the incident was a manifestation of the close tie between the European
colonisers and Legislative Council (consisting of Gambian elites and politicians) playing a significant role. The public reaction is an indication that Gambians were active participants in the colonial policy making process.
One of Baldwin‘s (1951) recommendation was for the schools to offer courses that were ―related as closely as possible to the local life and economy which in this case is almost entirely that of the rural farming community‖ (p 5). For example, ―Nature Studies‖ of a practical kind with plots of land attached to schools for practical experiments and demonstrations with parents witnessing school experiments. This suggestion is considered as ―adapted curriculum‖ (Ball, 1994; Bacus, 1974) reflecting the first systematic expression of the British government views on education in the report by the Education Committee of Privy Council to the Colonial Office in 1847 (Ball, 1984, p 123). Industrial schools were proposed in order to improve the conditions of the peasantry in the colonies through practical training in house hold economy, cottage gardening and agriculture. The labour of children was proposed to be made available towards meeting some of their school expense.
In order words, the practical curriculum proposal was to keep Africans on the land instead of attracting them to the modern colonial economic sector.
Similar ideas coined as - educational base‘ are noted in the Serra Leone education review of 1974 which also used the expression - basic education‘ interchangeably with ‘education base‘. The terms refer to the programme/cycle preparing the students ―for further schooling, for work and work-training programmes, and for living in developing communities both urban and rural‖ (Palmer and Holt, 1974, p 4). Two major challenges arose in such a curriculum proposal: (1) the aspirations of students and their parents towards academic curriculum and (2) the lack of teachers to provide instruction in the practical subjects. The policy based on Baldwin (1951) remained until after the country‘s independence in 1965 when another policy making was carried out for the period 1965 - 1975.
2.3.3 The Development Programme in Education for the Gambia 1965 – 1975
I have indicated in the previous sections that policy making was carried out through the Government‘s appointment of experts (McMath in 1943 and Baldwin in 1951) whose recommendations formed the basis of The Gambian education policies at the time. After independence in 1965, the role played by the colonial Government was assumed by UNESCO by sending a mission to conduct a survey of education in The Gambia. The mission was financed by UNICEF and led by Dr G. F. Sleight who presented a report entitled ‗UNESCO Educational Planning Mission: A Survey of Education in The Gambia with Recommendations‘ presented in November, 1965. This report was acceded to and adopted by The Gambia Government in August 1966 as the Education Policy 1965 - 1975. The document itself has two titles. The original title indicated above and ‗Sessional Paper No. 8 of 1966: The Development Programme in Education for the Gambia 1965 – 1975‘. Unlike the controversy in the Parliamentary adoption of the Baldwin (1951) report, the Sleight report was adopted without adjustment as evident in the Forward page of the policy text by The Gambian Minister of Education:
The Development Programme in Education for The Gambia 1965 – 1975 which is now published as a Sessional Paper is a comprehensive document which has been prepared by a UNESCO Educational Planning Mission … Cabinet has agreed to adopt the development programme outlined in the Report as Government‘s long-term Education Policy … (The Gambia Government, August, 1966- Forward).
The Sleight Report (1965) focused on disparity between the colony (the capital and the environment) and the protectorate (i.e. the rural areas). The colony had 44% of all primary school places and 86% of secondary schools. Whilst 66% of the children in the urban area attended school, less than 16% of the children in the provinces were attending (Sleight, 1965). Sleight (1965) recommended school expansion especially in the rural areas, an improvement of teacher training at the training college, development of syllabuses and teachers‘ guide and the supervision of younger teachers by head teachers in schools. As regards instructional syllabuses, Sleight (1965) suggested subject specialist panels of experts to be appointed in the short-term from among the specialists in the Ministries of Education, Health and Agriculture, Teachers‘ Union and teacher training college to start the process. The subjects recommended were English language, Arithmetic, Rural Studies (for schools in the provinces; modified science and craft in Bathurst), Social studies and other cultural subjects, Koranic studies, vernacular (local languages) and music. The school calendar was suggested to range from September to July. Although the report raised an eyebrow on the selection examination, no new method of assessment was recommended in the report. The educational developments in the coming years were based on Sleight‘s recommended policies. The recommendation for syllabus development was initiated as curriculum planning (CP making at the operational level) during the implementation of the Education Policy 1976 – 1986 discussed next.
2.3.4 Education Policy 1976 – 1986
The educational priorities 10 years after independence are presented in the Sessional Paper No.5 of 1976 (Education Policy 1976 – 1986), being the first education policy after the country became a republican state in 1970. Unlike the previous policy making process of a single expert (like Baldwin and Sleigh) leading the policy making process, the development of this policy involved the UNESCO and national experts with financial support from UNICEF. The approval of the policy was through the Executive and Legislative processes explained earlier.
The curriculum proposal for primary education included literacy in local language and English language, Mathematics, Basic Science, Environmental Studies, Physical Education, Home Economics and Nutrition Education. Furthermore, provision was made for the government to take full responsibility for teachers of Arabic/Islamic Studies in all schools, a subject to ―appear in all school time tables‖ (p 16). The major landmarks during this policy period were structural transformation at secondary level and national curriculum planning.
The policy proposed redesigning the school system in a way that appeared as a compromise of the public interest in the academic oriented curriculum and the notion of ‗adapted curriculum‘ discussed in Section 2.3.2. The former Grammar schools or senior secondary schools were redesigned as High schools (leading to General Certificate of Education O’level examinations); the Secondary Modern or Junior Secondary Schools were re designated as Secondary Technical Schools to offer a vocational oriented curriculum. The duration of courses in both types was proposed to be five years but in practice, that of the Secondary Technical Schools remained a four year programme. This is an example of a national policy which was not implemented.
This change of school structure may be linked to the prevailing diversification of secondary school programme in the 1970s (Jammeh, 1993, p 15). The schools were ―meant to provide both academic and job-specific related courses that would provide graduates with high employment opportunities‖ (ibid). Moreover, the rationale for the Secondary Technical School initiative was to create viable economic units in schools. As the policy states: ―the agricultural/vocational orientation envisaged in primary school course should continue to an even greater extent at this level‖ (Government of the Republic of The Gambia, 1976, p 6). The plan failed because of the lack of teachers and equipment as well as the perception that vocational education was the second best learning opportunity. For example, students graduating from Secondary Technical Schools competed for entry into High schools
towards General Certificate of Education - Ordinary level. These were some of the concerns expressed in the development of the next policy (Education Policy 1988 – 2003). Before discussing the process of making the 1988 – 2004 policy, the second landmark of implementing the Education Policy 1975 -1986 is so important to my study that it deserves a subsection, that is the introduction of curriculum policy making at the operational level - curriculum planning,
2.3.4.1 Curriculum Planning Initiatives (Operational Policy Making)
Curriculum planning was initiated as recommended by Sleight (1965) by the establishment of the Curriculum Development Centre in 1975. This marked a major curriculum reform programme conducted in The Gambia with assistance from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UNESCO and UNICEF. A UNESCO expert funded by UNICEF was sent to The Gambia to establish a Curriculum Development Centre with a view to operationalising curriculum goals outlined in the strategic education policy. Among the Centre‘s functions are:
(a) To participate in specifying the overall goals of education in The Gambia, and to guide the derivation of subject-area objectives;
(b) To co-ordinate the development of syllabuses for primary, secondary and teacher education;
(c) To develop instructional materials in co-operation with established committees and teacher organisations;
(d) To serve as a base for the adaptation, modification or further development of new curriculum materials selected either from within the country or from external sources;
In addition, organising orientation courses for the purpose of disseminating innovations in curriculum and instruction as well as to undertake, sponsor and co-ordinate relevant research constitute important functions of the centre (Shankanga, 1977, pp 1 - 2). Work started with the development of syllabuses as Shankanga (1977) notes, ―Not only was there virtually no syllabus to guide teaching in primary schools, in particular, but the new national objectives for educational development required a systematic and comprehensive approach to curriculum reform‖ (p 2). A four phase programme of curriculum reform was
implemented. These are Syllabus Planning Phase, Production of Instructional Materials Phase, Pilot Project – testing the new syllabus and materials; and National-wide dissemination of the new curriculum. To start with, a seminar was conducted to determine elements of a syllabus, to prepare a set of criteria for evaluating a syllabus and a checklist to guide syllabus planning. At the syllabus planning seminar, the UNESCO expert (the project director) presented five basic elements to constitute a syllabus. These are:
- A derivation of educational aims from the national philosophy and development goals;
- Selection and organisation of content that is relevant to the aims and objectives of the course;
- Suggestions of suitable learning experiences based on the objectives; (4) Suggestions of how it is intended to evaluate student progress;
- Suggestions of suitable learning materials and media (ibid., p 3).
These are based on Tyler‘s (1949) curriculum vision (discussed in Chapter 3) further developed by Taba (1962) whose entire book ―is based on the assumption that there is such an order and that pursuing it will result in a more thoughtfully planned and a more dynamically conceived curriculum‖ (p 12). The order is organised into seven steps as follows (1) Diagnosis of needs (2) Formulation of objectives (3) Selection of content (4) Organisation of content (5) Selection of learning experiences (6) Organisation of learning experiences (7) Determination of what to evaluate and of the ways and means of doing it (i.e. the evaluation). The slight difference however, is that while Taba (1962) suggests analysis of the background of students especially the society, culture and learning theories as the basis for formulation of the objectives, Shankanga (1977) takes a shorter route to arrive at syllabus objectives. He says syllabus is prepared by ―a detailed consideration of the national philosophy and the developmental goals from which a derivation is made of appropriate and relevant educational aims and objectives‖ (p 6). These national philosophy and goals are obtained from the strategic education policies and are operationalised into curriculum plans, consisting of syllabuses and instructional materials. The planning is carried out by the subject specialist panels as suggested by Sleight (1965). Therefore, CP making at operational level was a result of the policy based on the Sleight Report (1965).
It is noted above that there was one level of CP making until during the period of implementing the Education Policy 1976 – 86 when another level was introduced. CP making therefore, currently encompasses two levels: (a) national (strategic) education 34
policy and (b) curriculum planning through which the curriculum related goals of the national strategic policy are operationalised into specific CP guidelines (Sankanga, 1977).
Obanya (1995) observes that The Gambia relies heavily on external funding and when funds were not available, the Curriculum Development Centre ceased to function as anticipated. In the late 1990s the Ministry of Education authorities decided to transfer the management of the centre to the Gambia College. As such the situation became worse because most of the trained personnel of the Centre were unhappy about the arrangement and left. Therefore, the Curriculum Development Centre could not carry on its core function of curriculum planning because of the lack of professional and financial capacities. As a result, the Centre was set up as a directorate within the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education in 2005. However, the planning system introduced in the Curriculum Development Centre in the 1970s still remains as the predominant process of curriculum planning for public schools in The Gambia, that is, curriculum planning is in the hands of a small group of representatives (subject panels) under the coordination of the staff of the Curriculum directorate. In contrast, participation in the strategic education policy making broadened to include the general public as will be noted in the policy making approach for the period 1988 – 2003.
2.3.5 Education Policy 1988 -2003
The end of the 1986 policy was a period when the country faced serious economic crises and in the 1985/86 fiscal year, the government with the assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank formulated and implemented policies and programmes under the Economic Recovery Programme with a view to correcting the economic imbalance (Jammeh, 1993). This coincided with period when economic analysts such as Psacharopoulos and Woodhall (1985) applied concepts such as ‗efficiency‘ and ‗equity‘ to education. In his publication on a case study conducted in Colombia Psacharopoulos (1985) indicates that a diversified curriculum has failed to increase the employment opportunities of school leavers from the vocational stream over those from the academic stream. These findings may have been upheld by the donor agencies leading to the lack of funding of The Gambian Secondary Technical School programme and to its subsequent failure. A policy for the period 1986 – 1991 was drafted by the Ministry of Education but was discarded for a reason that all stakeholders should have taken part in the policy making process:
In the context of a democratic set-up the planning process should …make room for and accommodate wide public debate so that the resultant policies do not only reflect the technical expertise of the planners and the administrators but also take into account the legitimate concerns and intimate convictions of the members of the general public (Ministry of Education, Youth, Sports and Culture, 1987, p 2).
Policy making, neither as a single expert-led nor a Ministry of Education affair but as public participation with a group of experts, characterised the development of the Education Policy 1988- 2004. The first National Conference on Education was held in The Gambia from September 21st– 26th, 1987 with over 250 participants including teachers, students, administrators, politicians and representatives from various organisations. The conference was facilitated by local resource persons and international experts mainly from UNESCO and the Commonwealth Secretariat (ibid). It is questionable whether the decision to have an open public debate was out of a genuine concern for public participation or pressure from the World Bank and IMF. Nevertheless, the term ‗BE‘ featured in two of the presentations (directors of education and curriculum) at the conference but it was not very clear how or what it was going to mean. For example, the conference papers interchanged the terms ‗BE‘ and primary education. In this regard, it may be argued that the policy making was at the time when BE was already on the international agenda. However, the policy making was said to be based on the findings and recommendations of the national conference and on the subsequent discussions of the Ministry of Education officials ―especially in respect of the financial implications of alternative policy option‖ (Ministry of Education, Youth, Sports and Culture, 1988, p 4). The policy text was developed by staff at the Ministry of Education and then Cabinet approval followed by the Parliamentary endorsement process.
Comparing the Education Policy 1988 – 2003 and the previous policies, I observe the language of economics such as cost-effective use of resources for education and the management of the educational system emerged for the first time in policy agendas. This might be linked to the involvement of IMF and the World Bank in the country‘s economic recovery programme I noted above.
The policy proposes curriculum for Grades 1-6 to include three predominant national languages as medium of instruction for Grades 1 to 3 and taught as a subject from Grade 3 onwards:
English, which should be taught as a subject from Grade 1 and becomes the medium of instruction from Grade 3; Mathematics; General science; Social Studies; Home Economics; Physical and Health Education; Arts and Craft (including local craft); Music; Religious Education; and Family Life Education (Government of the Republic of The Gambia, 1988, p 17).
It was the first time Family Life Education (later called Population and Family Life Education) became an agenda for inclusion into the national curriculum. As Obanya (1995) notes, population issues were high on the international agenda at that time, thus the promotion of an international concern in the national curriculum. The policy document proposed curriculum evaluation to be completed by 1990 in order to determine whether it is practical for a primary teacher to deal with all the subjects proposed by the policy. There is no record of such an evaluation but policy review was conducted in 1995 as part of the mid-decade review after the World Conference on Education for All was held in Jomtien, Thailand in March 1990, that is, three years after The Gambia‘s first national conference.
The conference adopted the World Declaration on Education for All and the Framework for Action to Meet Basic Learning Needs (UNESCO, 1990). Article 1 of the Declaration which highlights the purpose of education for all, states that:
Every person - child, youth and adult - shall be able to benefit from educational opportunities designed to meet their basic learning needs. These needs comprise both essential learning tools (such as literacy, oral expression, numeracy, and problem solving) and the basic learning content (such as knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes) required by human beings to be able to survive, to develop their full capacities, to live and work in dignity, to participate fully in development, to improve the quality of their lives, to make informed decisions, and to continue learning. The scope of basic learning needs and how they should be met varies with individual countries and cultures, and inevitably, changes with the passage of time (UNESCO, 1990, p 7).
The above international policy recognises that basic learning needs and the corresponding formal education system may vary from country to country. This challenges UNESCO member countries to domesticate, translate or recontextualise the international policy. Therefore, the international policy position about BE seems ―to be sufficiently flexible to
enable individual member countries to develop their own policy stances‖ (Taylor and Henry, 2007, p 102). The Gambia has adopted an expanded vision of BE to include Early Childhood Care and Education, Adult and Non-formal Education and the formal nine-year BE cycle (the concern for this study) divided into Lower (Grade 1 to 6) and Upper (Grade 7 to 9) Basic levels of six and three years duration respectively. These levels correspond with age groups 7 to 12 years and 13 to 15 years respectively. Appendix 1 shows the structure of The Gambian formal education system, indicating the position of BE in the overall education system.
The institutions providing BE therefore are conventional ‗Western schools (public, mission and private) and Madrassah. I have explained earlier how Madrassah was produced as a hybridised education system, consisting of the Western and traditional Maglish characteristics. The first policy statement recognising Madrassah institutions as providers of BE is made in the Education Policy 2004 – 2015, proposing a commitment of public resources as follows:
The Madrassas will be supported and strengthened to cater for children whose parents opt for instruction in these institutions. Such support will include provision of teachers of English language, instructional materials, upgrading and training of Madrassa teachers for quality assurance (Government of the Republic of The Gambia, 2004, p 20).
This policy resulted from a thorough public consultation over policy matters in the policy making process of the Education Policy 2004 - 2015 discussed next.
2.3.6 Education Policy 2004 - 2015
In the development of the previous policy, public consultation on policy matters was through a National Conference. However, the consultation process in developing the current Education Policy 2004 - 2015 took another dimension. The policy making process took place ―in a variety of ways, to include children as well as adults; illiterate as well as literate members of the society; government departments; civil society and private sector representatives‖ (p 9). Forums were organised in both rural and urban parts of the country to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the previous education policy (1988 – 2003) with a view to developing a new education policy. These included television and radio programmes, children‘s forum and regional conferences to solicit views and recommendations which provided the basis for further discussions at the national conference on education.
As a follow-up to the public consultations, a team produced various drafts of the policy text. The fourth draft was presented to the stakeholders across all regions of the country for validation at regional validation workshops before the final draft was submitted to the Cabinet and then to the House of Parliament in The Gambia. The concept of BE was embraced in the previous policy has been reinforced by this policy.
The policy defines BE in terms of school structures or institutions through which BE is offered and focuses on various strategies of providing BE to all eligible children. However, the policy seems to be silent over clarifying the concept of BE in terms of curricula requirements. The courses in the BE programme are not indicated in the policy as was the case for primary education in the previous policies or for the senior secondary schools in the current one. However, the policy proposes ―on-going review and upgrading of the curricula across basic and secondary levels based on explicit learning objectives upon which assessments will be more reliably based‖ (p 16). As such, between 2008 and 2010, a subsidiary policy known as ‗Curriculum Framework for The Gambia‘ was developed by a Gambian team with support from UNESCO.
The Curriculum Framework specifies and compartmentalises learning areas into numerous subjects, allocates percentages of teaching periods to the subjects and groups subjects into core and none core subjects. My own view, and indeed argument in this thesis is that the subject compartmentalisations are numerous, too specific and discriminatory (core and non
core) , has not taken into account the reality that schools have varying resources and become what Winter (2011) refers to as one-size-fits-all curriculum.
In summary, I have so far explored the evolution of policy making in The Gambia from the colonial era to today. The process started by Government engagement of foreign experts to carry out studies on policy matters whose reports were discussed, amended (in some instances) and approved by the Legislative Council. Contested views, conflicts, struggles, and differential power relations over curriculum matters have also been highlighted. In addition, tensions between different curricula orientations especially vocational and academic oriented curricula are noted. The discussion shows that the link between education and the knowledge economy discussed in Chapter 3 existed since the colonial period.
From an engagement of a single expert which characterised policy marking in the colonial period, policy making evolved and incorporated the international and national experts as well as the general public. The policy approval remains the responsibilities of the Cabinet and the House of Parliament.
