OVERVIEW OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION SITUATION IN THE
Science and Technology are widely accepted as important vehicles in the economic transformation of any given country which The Gambia is no exception. The creation of policies and institutions that facilitate the generation of scientific knowledge and its diffusion, expressed in the form of technological capabilities is the defining challenge that developing countries like the Gambia has to face. Thus the importance of Science, Technology and Innovation for our socio-economic development can no longer be compromised and as a result, The Gambia as a nation needs policies and facilities that can foster the development of Science and Technology if we are to achieve the objectives enshrined in our Vision 2020 and the Poverty Reduction Strategy papers (PRSP).
Although there are huge challenges facing the
However, all these positive moves are yet to be backed by a National Science and Technology Policy, an instrument widely recognised as having impact on a country's growth and development prospects. The non existence of a National Science and Technology Policy not only hinders our development plans but also creates a situation whereby we do not have a coordinated sense of direction as well as policy guidelines that can trigger research and development in this country. It also denied us the necessary information on what scientist and other engineers are doing in this country. This is further aggravated by the following challenges:
- Very little investment in R&D
- The limited science and technology infrastructure, resources and capacity;
- Lack of critical mass of scientifically literate policy-makers or decision-makers who appreciate the link between science and technology and the socio-economic and socio-political issues to a level where they can commit costly and long-term investment as a matter of priority;
- Lack of a critical mass of trained and motivated personnel, policies or appropriate incentives to retain the few Science and Technology personnel that exist within the system;
- Lack of proper incentives and partnerships with the private sector to engage in a more strategic and long-term development of the human resource base; and
- Absent of formulated policy in some of the sectors
In light of this, in February – March 2008, ISESCO in partnership with The Gambia National Commission for UNESCO (NATCOM) supported a consultancy on the preparation process for the Development of a Science and Technology Policy for The Gambia. The aims and objectives of the consultation meetings with Stakeholders and a validation workshop were.
Overall Goals
- To establish what stakeholders visualise as the components of a Science and Technology Policy
- To come up with measures that can facilitate the development of a national Science and Technology Policy
- To draw up a Science and Technology Policy for the country that would help strengthen Science and Technology capacities in The Gambia in order to stimulate and sustain a balanced socio-economic growth and development.
Specific Objectives
- To provide expert scientific inputs to policy making
- To assess strengths and weaknesses of existing S&T capacity of all stakeholders in order to build and/or improve the requisite national capacity.
- To promote S&T activities in educational programmes as well as in research.
- To develop a strategy that would identify concrete actions for helping international, national, and local actors bring about reforms and introduce the necessary innovations, including promoting networks and implementation and monitoring
- To identify and incorporate the sectoral policies and concerns on what a Science and Technology Policy for The Gambia should comprise based on the different challenges peculiar to each sector.
Recommendations
The following priority actions were identified at the end of the Consultative meetings and validation exercise to enhance the capacities for STI policy formulation in The Gambia:
- Form a committee to sensitize the public on issues relating to developing capacities as well as a Science and Technology Policy
- Engage the other stakeholders that were not involved in this exercise
- Have further consultative meetings to review the document in order to provide best practices for the formulation of a national policy
- Set up a taskforce to prepare a draft Science and Technology (S&T) Policy
- Organize a workshop to validate the draft S&T Policy
- Production of the final Science and Technology Policy spanning from 2009-2020
- Sensitization on the policy document
- Preparation of the Strategic Action Plan (2009-2020)
In view of the commitment of the Gambia Government to the development of science and technology, it is natural that practical steps be now taken to adopt holistic and realistic approach to develop and translate our science and technology needs and policies into plans, projects and programmes within the means currently available and in the context that can move this country forward. The following table shows the expenditure on R &D. It is good to note that in The Gambia, expenses on R&D are not lump into one component as R&D but instead spread out using various nomenclatures in different Ministries.
Science Education in the
This can also be examined looking at the status of Science and Technology Education in our school system as this also has a bearing on how Science and Technology is viewed within a country. The current situation of science and technology education (STE) in the
At the Lower Basic (primary level) science is taught/learned in overcrowded classrooms by teachers who have been deemed to be poorly trained and highly de-motivated in terms of salary, fringe benefits and other career-related issues. Science is taught/learned as part of a core subject in grades 4-6. No corresponding technology subject is offered at this level (except for Arts and Craft which is not strictly technology).
As for the other core subjects at this level the ability of the teachers to adopt the appropriate/modern teaching/learning methods/strategies professed by the curriculum development and planners (and dubbed as child-centred, integrated etc) has been found to be most wanting, and not surprisingly the performance of students in science as measured by a national assessment tests has been very poor.
At the Upper Basic (secondary level) science is offered as an examinable core subject for Grades 7 to 9 students, and is taught/learned in ordinary over-crowded classrooms using nothing more than chalk, the blackboard, notes-copying and occasional reference to the pupils text-book or teachers demonstration. During these three years junior secondary/upper basic science course, practical continuous assessment in science (CASS) is required which constitutes 25% of the final mark/grade of students.
Despite this official requirement, virtually no practical work is done in most schools for reasons including lack of CASS equipment and other required facilities, poor monitoring/supervision by the school or department of education, and poor attitudes to teaching practical science. Junior science students’ transit to senior secondary schools after sitting to an external exam, the Gambia Basic Education Certification Examination (GABEC), a promotion determined more by the availability of place in receiving senior schools rather than by the quality of students’ performance. Over the past few years performance of students in science and mathematics in the GABECE (as in other subjects) has been constantly poor; for instance, the overall percentage pass in science in the years 2006 and in 2007 were only 15% and 18% respectively. At the junior secondary level the traditional technical subjects namely woodwork, Metalwork, Technical drawing and Arts & Crafts are offered, often without the requisite facilities or equipment. These “craft subjects” must be reviewed in the light of current demands of the modern labour market if they are to have any impact on our socio-economic development drive.
At the Senior Secondary level, where no national teaching curriculum exists, the specialised sciences are offered to a minority of more capable students. Many of these would drop physics or additional mathematics component of this course before their final year. Most of those who eventually finish the course would move away from science related career for reasons ranging from perceived difficulty of the subject or their perceived irrelevance to available employment opportunities. Most senior secondary students do not learn any of the specialised sciences of chemistry or physics but are obliged to take either biology or (more often) core science. Practical work by the students is almost non-existent mainly because of lack of laboratory facilities, equipment or supplies. Learning is therefore rote, theoretical, and the content is irrelevant to emerging issues and topics of the 21st Century or the globalised, knowledge –based economic.
Over seventy percent of the science teachers are non-Gambian (West African economic and political migrants) who owe no allegiance to proper science teaching or dedicated longevity of service to any school, and in the past few years rate of their attrition or transfer (to more lucrative jobs) has increased alarmingly.
Recent attempts to incorporate computer literacy into general secondary education and later on integrate ICT into science teaching have generated a lot of enthusiasm but produced very little results- in terms of measurable/significant impact on academic performance of students. Reasons for the latter include poor initial project planning which offered no policy guidance on issues such as technical support, maintenance/repair, and managerial support and educational use of the computers and the other hardware installed in 16 senior secondary schools as well as lack of resources for the directorate responsible for science and technology education.
At the Tertiary and Higher Education level science and technology education lacks facilities, staffing (mostly non-Gambian), and not surprisingly too, the requisite pool of quality students to recruit into science and technology courses where these exist. Not surprisingly, the performance of students in the sciences has always been below expectation, and has also not improved in the past several years.
In order to ensure that S&T features in the decision-making process, S&T policies must be integrated into the overall development policies of The Gambia. Government, therefore should develop a national system of science governance, formulate strategies for science, technology and innovation and integrate these into national development plans and programmes.
