Gambian youths suffering! FOROYAA’S Solution 101 falls on the deaf ears of ignorance!
By Hammadi Maasinah.
While reading through the underlying factors in the excerpt here below, It pleased my heart so much. Who could have said it better? The situation affecting our young ones particularly those leaving school these days is worrisome.
I concur with the idea that vocational jobs are looked low upon. In fact the principal actor in this game of snubbing these technical jobs is the Gambian state itself. Here we have a government calling in Nigerians to help boost the image of the National Youth Service Center . For what? Because the idea was imported into The Gambia without a second thought. These were the days Yahya Jammeh was copying everything from Tripoli and Abuja as an “uncut” starter. This is the main reason why wise men respect those who innovate thus scorn those who always imitate with "unsavoury" basic intincts! There was a lot he could have gotten from Nigeria other than trying to use political factors from Sani Abacha. Nigeria had the National Youth for so long,well before Abacha came. But for Jammeh it was a political instrument from a mentor! A dictator like him!
Now hear the same government warning Gambian youths against traversing the sea? Saying anyone caught will be dealt with? As if people love leaving their fatherland only to become adventurers without aims and objectives? That’s a perception which is so distasteful and callous to say the least. How many of our youths have been receiving Yahya Jammeh’s hammers of endless blames? Saying they are lazy,drinking ataya and smoking weed on street corners. Alas! Some of them have proven him wrong. We have trained youths in various fields yet none of them can be absorbed into neither the private nor the public sector. Is that serious? In all this we have loud mouths saying the Gambian youths are performing well in Taipei and Venezuella? How about taking care of those who are right before Jammeh’s nostrils? We can see endless propaganda of youths traveling to every corner praising Jammeh’s legacy of hypocrisy while we all know the underlying factors are far from being looked into.
Lets say Taiwan trains Gambians in various fields. Yes thanks but is that training attractive in the wild field of competitive gurus right round the globe? What is the essence of helping people get trained in parts of the world were those training them do not even know the matching factors in our own country’s curriculum? What? I can bet these universities unilaterally operate with the state house while paying no attention to what our society needs at this moment. Education is not for political propaganda. It is meant to serve the needs of the community in the area of capacity development. Now here we have people coming home saying they drank all the formulae in Physics from where Taiwan ? This is simply cheap talk. Gambian had seen good brains doing wonders in physics well before Yahya Jammeh was born. People like Ouwaa Njie,Sam Sarr of PDOIS,mathematicians like Pa Senghan Joof others and others. When it comes to geological studies etc,etc we have Gambians who could have trained these so-called performers in Taiwan right there in Brikima. Everything around Yahya is propaganda. I CAN BET THESE TAIWAN PRODUCTS WILL BE SENT TO ENGLAND OR OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD ON REFRESHER COURSES! Wait and see.
Taiwan leans on the US for these type of programs. How can Yahya escape using the talents of the West in all this? If he is not after cheap talk and useless methods of making noise for no reason why not ask the Taiwanese to help sponsor that department within the Gambia university? Where Gambian specialists can train our students right there in Brikama? Yahya sending people to Taiwan is so loud but it as if Gambians are so blind not to remember when other Gambian students like Jalamang Jobarteh and Alpha Robinson were als trained in Mainland China a decade or more ago. That program was and can still be revived. A scholarship package that was ready absorb far more than Taiwan's. Yahya is a shameless character who is always wanting to make a name for himself. We on this side will always share some details with the people to help demystify his subjective moves. Gambia has experts who can train these students being sent to Taiwan and Venezuela for mere political reasons. Give us a break,these are products who will find it so hard to compete products from universities like Forabay college in Freetown or other parts of West Africa let alone standing before the whole international arena of scholars! To start with Nigerian universities could have trained and can still train Gambians interested in reading anything related to petroleum production and the like. In fact Nigeria is the world's 8th largest oil producer. Is Taiwan producing or drilling oil? Taiwan is an island feeding on services just like Singapore!!! This whole noise of a scholarship package in these two countries that is,Taiwan and Venezuela is nothing other cheap propaganda. I for one shall always doubt their competence. Not that they cannot perform but because of the fact that those training them lean on others like USA! Does The Gambia government know for how long companies like the Hunter Brothers having been playing in the world or in Africa to be more specific? They don't! they are so shallow in that regard. Why not we utilise the same places where Taiwan leans on instead of dwelling in this stream of false hope. Yahya Jammeh cannot be indifferent here,he knows that these packages mean nothing in the long run. Such degrees if brought to countries like the US or UK shall be screened throught rigorous eveluation processes! Not that Taiwan is not good,it is simply because Taiwan itself depends on the west so much. Their own government officials send their kids to USA and UK when it comes to specialised training. They know this and if Taiwan denies I will print figures from related statistics to prove this point.
We have to be realistic therefore avoid politicising education. We have to accept that training our students in universities like these is simply creating "half-baked" specialists. Our own Gambian scholars are well respected in the west where they lecture or teach everyday! If the government creates a department similar to the one in Taipei university,equip it with all the necessary facilities Gambians will do the job at home.We are not short of educated scholars who can be training our kids upto the level of masters degree and/or post graduate ones. Yes we have them. The problem is not our scholars,the problem is that of governance. Gambian scholars have already answered that part. We have our scholars as department heads and senior lecturers in the most competetive universities of the world. If the state house denies let them find out who are the Gambians lecturing in Howard University. Thats just one example. How about those lecturing in Saudi Arabia? In fact why would the APRC government not force their way thus ask Taiwan to recruit our own Gambian scholars to help lecture in their universities? If it is expensive for Taiwan to erect the four walls of a university it may not be expensive for them recruit our lecturers in their universities!
It is high time we got our people complete their training home. Gambians have always been doing well. They have been studying and mastering foreign languages against all odds. Gambians have been trying so hard in Germany despite the acute language barrier. We have been seeing Gambians trained in the former USSR where they learned how to speak Russian before completing their studies. Can you imagine our students' efforts in all this!? Why do we have to stay in that challenging demand when we have Gambians who can do the job at home? Now a question for Yahya Jammeh? Did the APRC train all those Gambians who are respected scholars in other parts of the world? Did the APRC train scholars who are have lecturing well before Yahya himself completed high school? Did the PPP regime claim ownership of these achievements? Yahya why go through all that propaganda when they could have done the same courses in Nigeria or build that department in Banjul itself!!!? This is where Yahya Jammeh needs to understand that education is not to be POLITICISED. It is the motherearth of our development program as a nation.
Did we even need that package in the first place? These scholarship packages are going to produce practitioners and technicians who work like “automats”. Saying and doing what the regime says then coil back. This is the danger in politicizing education. We had other scholarship packages like these from other countries like Liberia during Doe’s time. What happened? They turned out to be liabilities for the country!
Quality education in vocational training serves us much better these Jammeh-sponsored “stylists” who have been carved to go and spend months with “presumably” better aura for us now.
Help those at home first before politicizing “hand picked” so-called talents abroad. As time goes on Taiwan will show Jammeh their true colours. Does Banjul know the latest regarding relations between the Island and its bellicose neighbour the Big Mainland? Issuing visas between the two have been restored! Next will be another surprising shock!
Once the trainees finished their training they spend endless time searching for work in vain. Foroyaa has discovered that many young people do not know where to go to seek employment in the government service. They simply write to any institution which comes to mind for assistance. These institutions hardly respond to such letters to indicate whether the applicant is successful or not. Hence many young people continue to be uncertain regarding their future.
The Way Forward
The government has the Personnel Management Office (PMO) which is designed to receive applications for appointment to the public service. Many young people do not know the location of the office. Those who know its location are left in the dark after submitting their application forms. Urgent measures are required to redress this situation.
First and foremost, information needs to get to those students in their final year in senior secondary school or vocational training institutions on what to do to seek employment. Employees of the PMO should be mandated to visit such institutions to give guidance to the young people.
Secondly, the PMO should coordinate with the Management Development Institute (MDI) and other institutions to prepare a government entrance examination so that merit will determine chances of employment.
Thirdly, the PMO should hire a human resource development expert to study the profile of all applicants and categorise them on the basis of their areas of competence. This will enable the office to guide the graduates of the various institutions.
The Chamber of Commerce should also do a similar study on the private sector in order to come up with documentation on the trend of employment in the country. Such information should be known in schools and the society in general.
Finally, the Gambia Bureau of Statistics should keep track of the unemployment rate in the country so as to alert government of the urgencies of the situation. The object of government is to guarantee prosperity to the citizenry. Once such prosperity is negated governments suffer a loss of moral legitimacy.
