A. Broers
Student VU University Amsterdam
Student VU University Amsterdam
Education
in The Gambia – One step at a time
This month I had the chance to visit The
Gambia. This country is one of the smallest, in size and in number, African
countries situated in Western Africa. The estimated population is just over 1.7
million (SOWCR, 2009) with 50 percent of the people being children and youth
under 18. Although the Gambian state is making progress in the field of
education not everybody is going to school yet. In this short piece I would
like to discuss the issue of law concerning the right to education and I will
defend the point of view that this children’s right is not guaranteed in The
Gambia.
Based on the legal framework there should
be no problem with guaranteeing this right, since The Gambia is a State Party
of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which includes the right of
the child to education in article 28. Besides that, they are a State Party of the
African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, which contains the
right to education as well (article 11) and moreover, they are one of the few
countries with a wide-ranging Children’s Act, which has the goal of harmonizing
national law with the relevant international conventions and declarations.
The Charter was adopted in July 1990 by the
Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) in July 1990 and entered
into force in November 1999. It was
created to complement the CRC. Both conventions include principles of non-discrimination
and participation, but the African States felt the need to address some topics
specifically to African children, for example harmful practices against the
girl child, such as female genital mutilation and the duties and
responsibilities of the child towards the family and community.
Based on art. 28 CRC and art. 11 of the
African Charter The Gambia should establish free and compulsory primary
education and encourage children to go to school. Even though The Gambia has
different promising policies to improve the situation, it is not clear that the
situation has indeed improved. Since The Gambia has not reported to the CRC
since 2001 it is difficult to give percentages concerning the amount of
children that are attending school.
One of the most urgent matters at this
moment is the short period of compulsory education. Education is only obligatory
for children between 7 to 12 years old. The second important concern is the
quality of education. Right now The Gambia has the policies but NGOs are doing
the work. Numerous international institutions are willing to help The Gambia so
my suggestion would be that The Gambia signs the protocols to the CRC and the
ICESCR (which will open individual communication procedures) and starts working
together with the NGOs. This way The Gambia will be able to take more steps,
which they should be taking, in creating an educational environment that
complies with the children’s right to education.
To read more about the project I visited
you can go to their website: http://www.gambia-hah.nl
A very important requirement is that Gambia should fulfill its reporting obligations to the Childrens Committee. This weblog shows us how very weak those reporting obligations are: by not reporting the facts and figures are not even visible. The United Nations should not accept such nonchalence. However, perhaps there are some facts gathered bu NGO's?
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