Report on the Gambia / Colonial Office.

Date:
[1955]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the Gambia / Colonial Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    lions of the building have yet to be undertaken. At the end of 1955 the staff consisted of one female graduate teacher and one qualified female non-graduate trained in the United Kingdom. There is no post-seconclary education in the Gambia and persons requiring higher education proceed to institutions elsewhere in West Africa or to the United Kingdom. Education in the Protectorate Most Protectorate schools arc owned by District Authorities and staffed by Government teachers posted for duty in the Protectorate. The Authorities are responsible for capital costs, though loans are obtainable from the Farmers’ Fund, and for recurrent charges save for the salaries of qualified teachers which are paid by the Government. During 1955 a scheme for the payment of grants in aid of the salaries of qualified teachers in Mission schools was approved and put into force. The grants are awarded subject to certain conditions, including the willingness of the appropriate District Authority to make a small contribution to the cost of equipment and the maintenance of satis¬ factory standards. At the outset of the post-war expansion of Protectorate education, an endeavour was made to ensure even spacing of schools throughout the territory. Public appreciation of education varies widely from village to village, however, and initial enthusiasm is not always main¬ tained. In consequence, a number of schools were sited where there was little genuine demand. This policy has been abandoned and attention is now concentrated on communities where a favourable response can be expected. At present the primary schools offer a four-year course, accepting pupils of both sexes at the age of eight. The number of girls in the rural schools, though still small, increases from year to year and now forms a significant proportion of the whole. Teaching is carried out in the vernacular and English enters the curriculum as a subject of study in the second year of the course. Armitage School at Georgetown, which is a boarding establishment, offers a secondary modern course for up to one hundred boys. It is intended to expand the school and provide new buildings as soon as circumstances permit. In the meanwhile, a number of pupils from Georgetown and, in some cases, from the Protectorate primary schools, complete their education in Bathurst. Teacher Training Prior to 1949 all Gambian teachers received their training in Sierra Leone or the Gold Coast. In that year a Protectorate training centre providing a one-year course for 30 men was opened at George¬ town in MacCarthy Island Division. Plans for expansion were under discussion when, in 1951, the Colonial Development Corporation
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