National Study on Out-Of-School Children in the Gambia

for every child

THE REPUBLIC OF THE GAMBIA MoBSE

NATIONAL STUDY ON OUT-OF-SCHOOL CHILDREN IN THE GAMBIA

JANUARY 2017 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Table of contents

Acknowledgement ...... 1 List of abbreviations ...... 2 Executive summary ...... 3 CHAPTER 1 ...... 12 INTRODUCTION ...... 12 Country Profile ...... 12 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of The Gambia ...... 13 History ...... 15 Tourism ...... 16 Economy...... 17 Employment opportunities ...... 18 Migration of 15+ persons and the reasons for migration ...... 19 Methodology of data collection for the OOSC ...... 22 Organisational structure of the Ministry of Education ...... 23 The Education System in The Gambia ...... 23 Early Childhood Development/ Early Childhood Education ...... 24 Ownership of ECD Centres ...... 29 Lower Basic Education ...... 31 Upper Basic Education ...... 34 Senior Secondary Education ...... 37 MDG and EFA progress ...... 39 Literacy rate in The Gambia ...... 41 TVET ...... 45 Special Education ...... 45 Madrassah or Religious school ...... 47 DARAS or Majlis ...... 47 Chapter 2 ...... 48 An Overview of the Global OOSCI ...... 48 The five dimensions of exclusion ...... 48 Five Dimensions of Exclusion (5DE) ...... 48 Dimension 1 (Pre-primary school-age children, out of school) ...... 51 Out of school children under Dimension 1 ...... 52 Dimension 1 calculations ...... 55 DIMENSION 2 ...... 56 Methodology for calculating Dimension 2 ...... 57 Dimension 3 ...... 59 Methodology for calculating Dimension 3 ...... 59 DIMENSION 4 ...... 61 Methodology for calculating D4 ...... 61

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DIMENSION 5 ...... 64 Methodology for calculating D5 ...... 64 Chapter 3 ...... 67 Barriers and policies ...... 67 1. Financial Reasons ...... 68 2- Religious reason ...... 71 3. Not Allowed by Parents ...... 72 4. Household Work/Employment Reasons ...... 72 5. School’s Location ...... 73 6. No personal interest/Unaware of usefulness of education ...... 73 7. Mother’s Education ...... 74 8. Father’s Education ...... 74 Early Pregnancy or Early Marriage ...... 74 Other reasons ...... 75 Chapter 4 ...... 79 Conclusions and recommendations ...... 79 1. Quality of education ...... 79 b. Teachers continued education ...... 81 c) School Feeding Programme (SPF) ...... 83 2. Child rights ...... 84 e) Compulsory birth registration ...... 85 3. Social protection programmes ...... 86 a) Incentive schemes ...... 86 Solutions from the FGDs for issues raised in discussion ...... 87 Wide publicity highlighting the significance of education ...... 89 Parents-teachers relationship ...... 89 School events ...... 90 Guidance and counseling ...... 91 Need for developing a communication strategy ...... 92 References ...... 93 ANNEX A ...... 95 FGDs ...... 95 ANNEX B ...... 102 Enrolment and Repeaters of 2014, 2015 and 2016 of LBE, UBE and SSE ...... 102 ANNEX C ...... 104 Inception Report: ...... 104 Section 1: ...... 106 Introduction and background ...... 106 Section 2: ...... 109 Strategy for conducting OOSCI Study ...... 109

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Section 3: ...... 113 Work Plan and Timelines ...... 113 Section 4: ...... 115 Role and Responsibilities of the Persons Associated with this Study ...... 115 Annex A ...... 116 People met ...... 116 Annex B ...... 117 Focused Group Discussion – OOSCI study Gambia ...... 117 ANNEX D ...... 120 Figures ...... 120

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List of Tables

Table 1 Adapted from the projected population based on Census 2013 and MoBSE Yearbook 2016 5 Table 2 Showing number and percentage of children of age 6, who are in school and out of school 6 Table 3 Showing population of age 7-12, enrolment in LBE, UBE and OOSC by gender 7 Table 4 Adapted from Population projection for 2016 based on Census 2013 and MoBSE Year Book 2016 7 Table 5 Dropouts before last grade 8 Table 6 Survival rate, dropout rate and number of dropouts before last grade 8 Table 7 Number of OOSC in Dimensions 1 -5 by gender 9 Table 8 Administrative Regions and Districts with population 15 Table 9 Reasons for migration - adapted from LFS 2012 table 5.3 21 Table 10 Progress of selected indicators in the year 2000, 2015 and 2016 25 Table 11 ECD population, enrolment - adapted from MoBSE 2016 Year Book 27 Table 12 Showing an increase in number of ECD centres from 1999 to 2016 29 Table 13 ECD enrolment by region and gender in 1999 and 2016 30 Table 14 ECD age 3-5 percentage of children attending ECD centres 31 Table 15 Population of ECD age by region and enrolment by gender 31 Table 16 Population of LBE age children by region and gender 33 Table 17 LBE- GER 33 Table 18 LBE NER 33 Table 19 Showing population of age 7-12 and enrolment in LBE schools by gender 34 Table 20 Transition rate from LBE to UBE, by year from 2010 to 2016 35 Table 21 Number of LBE schools, enrolment and repeaters by gender, number of teachers and qualified teachers in the years 2010, 2013 and 2016 35 Table 22 GER UBE from the year 2010 to 2016 36 Table 23 Population of age 13-15, and enrolment by LGA and gender in UBE 36 Table 24 UBE GER from the year 2010-2016 37 Table 25 UBE NER for the year 2016 37 Table 26 Population of age 13-15 and enrolment in grades 7-9 in 2016 37 Table 27 Showing growth of UBE schools, enrolment and number of total teachers and qualified teachers 37 Table 28 A SSE GER for the years 2010- 2016 by gender 38 Table 28 B SSE NER for the year 2016 by gender 38 Table 29 Population of age 16-18, enrolment in SSE by gender and region 39 Table 30 Population of age group 16-18 and enrolment in grade 10-12 in 2016 by gender 39 Table 31 Indicators and progress, adapted from MoBSE, MICS 2010, GDHS 2013 41 Table 32 Adapted from Index Mundi graphs- figures borrowed from UIS 42

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Table 33 Adapted from Population Census 2013 data and MoBSE Yearbook 2016 44

Table 34 Number of special needs children by level of education- adapted from EMIS 2015-16 47 Table 35 Projected population of children of different age brackets and enrolment by gender in 2016. 51 Table 36 Projected population of ECD age children and enrolment in ECD centres by gender and level 52 Table 37 ECD age children population and enrolment by gender 53 Table 38 Showing enrolled children of different ages in ECD centres 54 Table 39 Showing the number of OOSC under D1 55 Table 40 Population of age 6, enrolled in ECD added to the 6-year-old in LBE by region. 55 Table 41 Formula for calculating D1 56 Table 42 Showing 6-year-old children who are in ECD added to the 6 year old in LBE by region 57 Table 43 Showing projected population of age 7-12, enrolment in LBE, UBE and SSE 58 Table 44 Showing formula for calculating D2 58 Table 45 Showing population of age 7-12 and the number enrolled in LBE, UBE and SSE by gender and number of OOSC 59 Table 46 Showing population of age 13-15 and the number enrolled in LBE, UBE and SSE and the number of OOSC by gender 60 Table 47 Showing calculation of D3 61 Table 48 Showing number of D3 by region 61 Table 49 Calculation of D4 and D5 62 Table 50 Showing enrolment by grade and gender from 2014 to 2016 63 Table 51 Showing number of repeaters by grade and gender from 2014 to 2016 adapted from MoBSE Yearbooks 2014, 2015 and 2016 63 Table 52 Showing promotion rate by grade and by gender in LBE schools in the years 2014 and 2015 64 Table 53 Showing repetition rates in LBE schools by grade and by gender in the years 2014 and 2015 64 Table 54 Showing survival rate by gender and by grade in LBE schools in the years 2014 and 2015 64 Table 55 Showing survival to the last grade in the year 2014 and 2015 64 Table 56 Showing dropout rate by grade and by gender in the years 2014 and 2015 65 Table 57 Showing the number of dropouts by gender and by grade in the years 2014 and 2015 65 Table 58 Showing the enrolment of UBE schools by grade, gender and year 66 Table 59 Showing the number of repeaters by grade, gender and year 66 Table 60 Showing promotion rates and repetition rates at UBE level 66 Table 61 Showing survival rate, dropout rate before the last grade and number of dropouts by year, gender and grade at UBE level 67 Table 62 Dimension 1-5 with total number of OOSC, male and female OOSC 67

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Table 63 Showing ownership of ECD centres and enrolment 71 Table 64 Reasons for not attending school –LFS 2012 78 Table 65 Reasons for discontinuation of schooling- LFS 2012 79 Table 66 ECD number and percentage of teachers by gender & ownership of centres – adapted from Yearbook 2015-16 82 Table 67 Showing number of male and female teachers and number of trained teachers at LBE levels 2015-16 84 Table 68 Showing number of male and female teachers and number of trained teachers at UBE levels 2015-16 84 Table 69 Number of teachers - male and female - at SSE level 85

List of Figures

Figure 1 Reasons for the children to be out of school 09 Figure 2 Reasons for the dropout from school 10 Figure 3 Possible solutions to bring OOSC to schools 10 Figure 4 Solutions for dropouts from schools 11 Figure 5 Reasons for male migration 22 Figure 6 Reasons for female migration 22 Figure 7 ECD – age 36-59 months attending ECD 30 Figure 8 A-C Percent share of school age children, age 3-18, Population, Percent enrolled, and percent out of school 44-45 Figure 9 Percentage of 6-year-old children not in school by LGA 56 Figure 10 Number of OOSC 67 Figure 11 The reasons why some parents would not send their children to school or Madrassah 68 Figure 12 The reasons for not completing education 69 Figure 13 Number and ownership of ECD centres 72 Figure 14 Enrolment in ECD centres under different ownership 72 Figure 15 Reasons for children not attending school 78 Figure 16 Reasons for discontinuation of schools 80 Figure 17 Possible solutions to the problems of parents not sending children to school or madrassah 92 Figure 18 Solutions for reducing dropouts from school 95

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Acknowledgement

In the preparation of this report the contribution, in one way or the other, of many officers of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE), the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MoHSW), the Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBoS) and several other offices, is laudable. In particular, the interest, guidance and support of Ms. Sara Beysolow Nyanti, Resident Representative; Mr. Rupert Leighton, Deputy Representative; Mr. Nuha Jatta, Education Specialist; and Mr. Alpha Ibrahim Cisse, Operations Manager at UNICEF and their support staff are worth appreciation. Mr. Nuha Jatta, despite his own busy schedule and heavy workload, took pains in organizing meetings with the relevant staff of different ministries and departments, and then subsequently pursuing them to provide the supporting data. He was the focal person in organizing Focus Group Discussions in several regions with the assistance of MoBSE officers.

At MoBSE, Mr. Muhammed BS Jallow, the Deputy Permanent Secretary (Programmes) proved to be very helpful in providing guidance and support. Mr. Alpha Bah, System Analyst of the Ministry, in fact the key person whose contribution in the analysis of data and development of the yearbooks and EMIS reports is of immense importance, assisted in providing the data sources of the EMIS data, which proved to be extremely useful in this study. The reports produced by the EMIS Sections are very great sources of information for planners, decision makers and researchers. During the first mission, though for a very short duration, the officers of MoBSE and other ministries and departments were kind to spare time for the meetings and provided all the relevant information and data. Special thanks to Mr. Basiru Mbenga, Principal Education Officer of MoBSE for his continued assistance in providing extremely useful documents.

Gratitude is due to Mr. Marc Bernal of UNESCO Institute of Statistics Dakar, and Ms. Inge Vervloesen, Education Specialist UNICEF WCARO who provided useful information and documents at the start of the study during Skype meetings and subsequently through e-mails. This report is based on the analysis of data and information obtained during meetings in the first mission and subsequently using the reports and information available on the websites of various ministries and departments especially from the websites of MoBSE and GBoS. The availability of such useful reports on the websites is worth appreciating, as many people including researchers can benefit from these reports. For this report, thanks are also due to GBoS officers, who positively responded to our requests and provided the required data. Special thanks are due to the participants of the two-day validation workshop, giving extremely useful inputs in modifying the contents of the report, as they deemed appropriate during the different sessions of the workshop.

It will not be out of place to mention the special efforts of the GBoS representatives in the validation workshop in preparing the population projection data by LGAs and gender, for inclusion in the final version of the report. In fact, the contribution of all the reviewers who put in their efforts in making the report more useful for the readers, is worthy of appreciation.

Muhammad Jamshed Khan Consultant Photo credit: UNICEF The Gambia/2018/SNoorani

January 2017 1 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

List of abbreviations

ANER Adjusted Net Enrolment Rate DHS Demographic and Health Survey

ECD Early Childhood Education EMIS Education Management Information System

F Female GBoS Gambia Bureau of Statistics GER Gross Enrolment Rate HIS Integrated Household Survey

ISRA Institute of Social Reformation and Action LBE Lower Basic Education LFS Labour Force Survey

LGA Local Government Area M Male MF Male Female MICS Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey MoBSE Ministry of Basic & Secondary Education MoH&SW Ministry of Health & Social Welfare NER Net Enrolment Rate OOSC Out of School Children OOSCI Out of School Children Initiative PAGE Programme for Accelerated Growth and Employment SFP School Feeding Programme SHP School Health Programme SSE Senior Secondary Education STR Student Teacher Ratio STTR Student Trained Teacher Ratio UBE Upper Basic education UNICEF United Nations ChildrenChildren’s Fund Fund

UNESCO United Nations Education, Social & Cultural Organisation UISS UNESCO Institute of Statistical Studies

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Executive summary

This study was initiated by UNICEF Gambia under the Out of School Children Initiative (OOSCI) launched in 2010 by the United Nations. The major objective of this study was to find out the number of OOSC and to find out who they are, why they are out of school and what measures should be taken to bring them into the school system. Many countries in the different continents have conducted similar studies, and the findings are extremely useful for planning the future strategies. The study has followed the UNICEF and UNESCO Institute of Statistical Studies (UISS) conceptual and methodological framework of five dimensions of exclusion as under:

Dimension 1 of exclusion: Children of pre-primary school age who are not in pre-primary (ECD centres) or primary (lower basic education) school

Dimension 2 of exclusion: Children of primary school age (LBE age) who are neither in primary (lower basic education) school nor in secondary (upper basic education) school

Dimension 3 of exclusion: Children of lower secondary school age (upper basic education age) who are neither in primary (lower basic education) nor in secondary (upper basic education) school

Dimension 4 of exclusion: Children who are in primary (lower basic education) but at risk of dropping out

Dimension 5 of exclusion: Children who are in lower secondary school (upper basic education) but at risk of dropping out.

The Gambia is a very small country in the West African region bordered on three sides; North, East and South by Senegal, and on West by the Atlantic Ocean. The whole country is in the form of a long strip having a length of about 500 kilometers and a width of about 50 kilometers. The country has eight Local Government Areas; Banjul, Kanifing, Brikama, Mansakonko, Kerewan, Kuntaur, Janjanbureh, and Basse. The population of the country, according to 2013 Population Census, is 1,857,181. Of this population, 52.25 per cent (968,805) falls in the age group 0-18 years. The rest (47.8 per cent) are in the age group 19 years and above. The total area of the country is 11,295 sq. km, with 10,000 land area and 1,295 sq. km water area. Forest covers about 44 per cent of the area. The country has 749 km land boundaries with Senegal. The climate is tropical with hot, rainy season from June to November, and cooler dry season from November to May. About 96 per cent of the population is Muslim and 3.8 per cent is Christian; the rest have some indigenous religions and beliefs. Almost three-fourth of the population depends on the agriculture sector for its livelihood. Small scale manufacturing activity is used for processing of peanuts, fish, and hides. Major dependence is on remittances from workers overseas.

The country’s natural beauty has made it very attractive for Europeans, and they find it a safe pleasant abode especially during winter season, when most of the European countries have freezing temperatures.

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The preschool education (ECD) attracts mainly children of age group 3-6 years, but children younger or older than this age range may gain entry into ECD centres. Generally, four levels of ECD classes (level 1-4) are present in these centres. The official entry age for the Lower Basic Education (LBE) is 7 years. The LBE has six grades (Grade 1-6), ideally for the age group 7-12 years and the pass outs get entry into the Upper Basic Education (UBE), consisting of Grades 7-9 for the age group 13-15 years. Upon completion of UBE, the students are admitted into Senior Secondary Education (SSE), from Grade 10 to12, for the age group 16- 18 years.

The population distribution of school age group is shown below:

Age/Grade Projected Female Male Enrolled Female Male populatio in school n for the in 2016 year 2016 3-6 Years/ 223,939 109,359 114,580 100,349 51,094 49,255 ECD Level 1-4

6 Years/ 55,332 27,121 28,211 6,094 3,104 2,990 ECD level 4

7-12 years/ 315,573 156,612 158,961 308,729 158,636 150,093 LBE Grade 1-6

13-15 years/ 145,930 73,619 72,311 90,838 46,554 44,284 UBE Grade 7-9

16-18 years/ 133,045 67,879 65,166 56,001 28,629 27,372 SSE Grade 10-12

Total 818,487 407,469 411,018 555,917 284,913 271,004

Table 1. Adapted from the GBoS projected population, based on Census 2013 and MoBSE Yearbook 2016

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The Five Dimensions of Exclusion

Dimension1: The pre-primary school age children who are not in school.

Under Dimension 1, the number of children out of school is 37,936; including 18,529 girls and 19,407 boys.

The figure seems to be alarming, but in fact, the actual number of physically out of school children of age 6 is far less than the given number. There are many children of this age who are in school, but could not be added to the figure because they were not in the final level of ECD. Since the criteria set for the calculation of D1 provided for inclusion of the last grade (level) of ECD, the figure of 37,936 which is 68.56 per cent of the population of 6-year-olds seems to be on the higher side. The following table shows the figure of children aged 6 years who are in level 4 of ECD and LBE, and also those out of school according to the criteria laid down by D1. In fact, the actual figure of OOSC age 6 years is 21,087, being considerably lower than the D1 figure because it includes the children of age 6 enrolled in other levels of ECD.

DIMENSION 1

Item Total Percent Girls Percent boys Percent

Population of age 6 55,332 100 27,121 49.02 28,211 50.98

6 years old enrolled 6,094 11.01 of 3,104 50.93 of 2,990 49.07 of in ECD level 4 the enrolled in enrolled in population ECD ECD of age 6

Less than 7 years 11,302 20.42 of 5,488 48.55 of 5,814 51.45 of old enrolled in the the the primary (presumed population enrolled in enrolled in to be 6 yr. old) of age 6 LBE LBE

OOSC 37,936 68.56 of 18,529 48.84 of 19,407 51.16 of the total the total Dimension 1 population OOSC OOSC of age 6 under Dimension 1

Table 2. Showing number and percentage of children of age 6, who are in school and out of school

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Dimension 2: the children of primary age who are not in primary (LBE or UBE) or secondary education (SSE).

The total figure under D2 is 64,550, including 26,123 girls and 38,427 boys.

DIMENSION 2 All Population 7-12-year- 7-12 year Total 7-12 7-12-year- Percentage LGAs of age 7- old old year old old of 7-12- 12 MF enrolled enrolled enrolled children year-old in LBE In UBE or in LBE, who are children SSE UBE or not in out of SSE school school Total 315,573 247,080 3,943 251,023 64,550 22.45 Girls 156,612 128,746 1,743 130,489 26,123 16.68 Boys 158,961 118,334 2,200 120,534 38,427 24.17

Table 3. Showing population of age 7-12, enrolment in LBE, UBE and OOSC by gender

Dimension 3: children and adolescents of Upper Basic Education age who are not in lower basic education, upper basic education, or senior secondary education.

The total projected population in the age bracket 13-15 is 145,930 including 73,619 female and 72,311 male children. The total enrolled in LBE, UBE and SSE is 106,743 including 53,290 girls and 53,453 boys. Thus the figure of D 3 OOSC is 39,187 including 20,329 girls and 18,858 boys.

DIMENSION 3 D3 Projected Enrolled Enrolled Enrolled Total 13- Dimension 3 OOSC All LGAs population in UBE in LBE in SSE 15 years Total of age Percent of of age 13- enrolled in bracket 13-15 age 13-15 15 in 2016 LBE, UBE not enrolled in population and SSE LBE, UBE or SSE Total 145,930 53,589 50,347 2,807 106,743 39,187 26.85 Girls 73,619 26,178 25,814 1,298 53,290 20,329 27.61 Boys 72,311 27,411 24,533 1,509 53,453 18,858 26.08

Table 4. Adapted from Population projection for 2016 based on Census 2013 and MoBSE Year Book 2016

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Dimension 4: children in primary schools at risk of dropping out. To find out the rate of dropping out before reaching the final grade of primary education, the enrolment figures by grade and the number of repeaters were used as inputs to get the following results:

Number of dropouts before the last grade Year Gender Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade Total 5 2015 MF 17,000 9,981 6,820 5,457 2,018 41,276

M 9,035 5,358 3,654 2,971 1,173 22,191

F 7,965 4,623 3,166 2,486 845 19,085

Table 5. Dropouts before last grade

The number of dropouts before reaching the final grade is 41,276 including 19,085 female and 22,191 male children.

Dimension 5: represents children in upper basic education (or lower secondary education) who are at risk of dropping out. The enrolment by grade in upper basic education and the number of repeaters were used as inputs to find out the number of dropouts before reaching the final grade. As a result of using the above data the survival rate, dropout rate and the number of dropouts as shown in the following table are obtained:

Year Gender Survival rate Dropout rate Number of dropouts before the last

grade

Grade 7 Grade Grade Grade Grade Grade Total 8 7 8 7 8 number of dropout

MF 94.11% 95.67% 9.96% 4.33% 3,163 1,267 4,430

2015 M 93.92% 94.45% 11.29% 5.55% 1,741 802 2,561

F 94.17% 96.87% 8.78% 3.13% 1,422 465 1,869

Table 6. Survival rate, dropout rate and number of dropouts before last grade

The total number of dropouts under D5 is 4,430 including 2,561 male and 1,869 female children.

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The total number of OOSC as per the five dimensions is given in the following table:

Dimension # Number of OOSC Number of OOSC Number of OOSC female male

1 37,936 18,529 19,407 2 64,550 26,123 38,427 3 39,187 20,329 18,858 4 41,276 19,085 22,191 5 4,430 1,869 2,561 Total 187,379 85,935 101,444

Table 7. Number of OOSC in Dimensions 1 -5 by gender

FGDs finding

The following were given by the participants of different FGDs as reasons for which the children remain out of school:

Teachers: No interest, financial reasons, no benefit seen, family work, inherited work, disability, distance to school, adopted versus biological children, low performance, cultural beliefs. S

School Children: Wrong perception of western education, financial reasons, ignorance, adopted vs biological children, domestic work, fear of pregnancy, distance

Regional Technical Advisory Committee: Parents’ illiteracy, financial reasons, domestic and farm work, negative perception, single parents, early marriage, health, disability Community Members and Parents: Ignorance, carelessness, financial reasons, distance, adopted children, no interest of children, children used as source of money earning, domestic work

to school or Madrassah to or school Out of school children: Distance to school, preference of type of school based on parent’s experience, cost of education, negative perception about conventional school, migration (back way)

why some parents would not send their children children their send not would parents some why Management Committee and mothers: Needed in farms or homes, some Non-Gambians don’t have birth certificates, expensive, low quality, no ons employment opportunity, past experience with older children not good, ignorance, parents not hopeful of their children to complete, ineffective school Reas management, teachers not dedicated, no appropriate transportation

Figure 1. Reasons for the children to be out of school

For the dropouts at different stages of primary and secondary education, the participants of FGDs gave the following reasons:

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Teachers: Cost, failure, marriage, pregnancy, drugs, peer influence, distance, street videos, no interest, domestic work, single parent, strict discipline in school

School Children: Cost, emigration to Europe, poor performance, drugs, pregnancy, fear of pregnancy, early marriage, domestic work

Regional Technical Advisory Committee: Illiteracy, cost, farms and domestic work, negative perception of school and madrassah, single parent, early marriage, child health, disabilities

out Community Members and Parents: Ignorance, cost, corporal punishment, peer influence, drug abuse, pregnancy, social network, mobile videos

Out of school children: Single parent, cost, farm and domestic work, low performance, marriage and teenage pregnancy, ill-health, distance, low self- esteem

Management Committee and mothers: Early marriage, school not sharing attendance and performance, migration, influence of parents, distance, easons: For not completing education or dropping R

domestic &farm work, no parental interest, low performance a

Figure 2. Reasons for the dropout from school

To bring the out of school children to school the following suggestions were given by the participants of the FGDs:

Teachers: Nation-wide campaign on significance of education, strengthening parents-teacher relationship, home visits of OOSC, parents’ educational visits,

competition and prize distribution ceremonies to attract attention of OOSC and parents, school material supplies to students, school feeding, co-curricular activities School Children: Awareness campaign, personal conduct of students & teachers, home visits of OOSC, involvement in domestics and social work to why some parents

convince their parents, inviting OOSC in co-curricular activities Regional Technical Advisory Committee: Wide campaign, parents’ involvement in decision making, increasing access to school materials, transform daras, flexible school rules & regulations, inter-sectoral coordination. school mapping, LGA to support the needy students in financing education, incentive schemes for best performing school Community Members and Parents: Parents’ groups to convince parents, monitoring of children by parents, frequent school visits by parents, attitudinal change of parents towards western education Out of school children: Campaigns, supporting families with cost on nd children their to school or Madrassah education, parents’ supervision, parents’ sensitisation on education, free textbooks, children’s motivation, ensure attendance, check absenteeism

Management Committee and mothers: Targeted campaigns, training of mothers’ clubs and SMCs, school feeding programme Possiblesolutions to theproblem of: would not se Figure 3. Possible solutions to bring OOSC to schools

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To reduce the dropout from school at primary and secondary levels, the following suggestions were given by the participants of the FGDs:

Teachers: Through counseling, incentive schemes, avoiding harassment, home visits, open day ceremonies, strengthening teacher- parent relationships, merit-based rewards, co-curricular activities, assistance to needy students

School Children: Mutual advice, sensitization, guidance and counseling, home visits, homework groups/clubs, improve student teacher relationship

Regional Technical Advisory Committee: Campaign on significance of education, parents’ involvement in decision making, facilitating access to schools/materials/books, flexible school rules/regulations, expanding the scope of school feeding programme, inter-sectoral coordination, school mapping, lags to assist needy students, incentive scheme, home visits, improve facilities, school health programme, develop re-entry programme for dropouts, publicity of laws against early marriage and child pregnancy

Community Members and Parents: Parents’ group to convince parents, monitoring of children’s activities by parents, frequent visits of parents to schools, change of attitude of parents towards western education

Out of school children: Support families with cost of education, monitoring attendance by parents, awareness of parents on education, free textbooks, supervising children to follow books, check absenteeism, monitoring body to check absenteeism o

Solutions for reducing the dropout from from schools the dropout reducing for Solutions Management Committee and mothers: Reduce child marriage, strengthen Mothers’ Clubs and SMCs, ECD school feeding programme, skills training to reduce back-way migration, coordination between parents and school on absenteeism of children and their performance

Figure 4. Solutions for dropouts from schools

In almost all the FGDs, financial reasons have been stated as the prime reasons for the children to be out of school, or to be dropped out from the school. Besides poverty, lack of awareness of children and their parents, distance to school, early marriage, fear of pregnancy, health and disability, quality issues, lack of proper transport system, corporal punishment in schools and no incentives for those completing education are the main causes of children to be out of school, or to be dropped out before completing education.

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The FGDs recommended financial support, awareness campaigns, incentive schemes, improving parent-teacher relationships, frequent visits of parents to schools, provision of free textbooks and other requirements, strictly monitoring the performance of children in schools, emphasis on quality improvement, expansion of school feeding programme, strengthening school health programme, competition and prize distribution ceremonies in schools, reducing child marriage, and strengthening Mothers’ Clubs and SMCs, are major recommendations for attracting OOSC and reducing dropouts.

The major recommendations can be grouped into three categories; quality improvement, child rights, and social protection. An emphasis on improving the quality of education by focusing on reforms in ECD, innovation in teachers’ training programme, expanding the scope of the school feeding programme, strengthening school health programme and mobilising SMC will definitely pay dividends. Wide publicity of education programmes at national and regional levels, awareness programmes for the children and their parents regarding education related programmes, and development of communication strategy will contribute in motivating children and their parents. Alongside these efforts, the child rights consideration includes implementation of compulsory primary education, imposing punishment for those not sending their children to school, disciplinary action against those teachers and headteachers using corporal punishment in their classes or schools, compulsory birth registration, imposing a complete ban on child marriage and child labour. The social protection component, in the form of developing incentive schemes, cash transfers, or providing transport facilities to selected groups of children, will contribute in attracting OOSC or reducing dropouts.

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Country Profile

The Republic of The Gambia is a very small country in the African continent, situated on the Atlantic Coast in West Africa, spread over an area of 11,295 square kilometers with a land area of 10,000 square km. The country is in the shape of a long strip having a width ranging from 24 to 48 kilometers and a length of 500 km. The Gambia River is the country’s dominant feature flowing throughout the length of the land from east to west into the Atlantic Ocean near the capital of the country, Banjul. The river is navigable throughout its length in The Gambia. This river is one of the finest waterways in Africa and is the only West African river that is easily accessible to oceangoing shipping. The Gambia River is used as a major mode of transportation. The country has 749 km land boundaries with Senegal.

The climate is of the drier tropical type, characterized by a short and intense rainy season occurring between June and October, and by a longer dry season from November to May. The rainfall is heavier near the coastal region where the rainy season lasts longer. Forest covers about 44 per cent of the area.

The country is populated by diverse ethnic groups. About two-fifths of the population is Malinke (Mandingo), followed by Fulani at about one-fifth, Wolof at about one-seventh, then Diola (Jola) and Sonenke (Serahuli). About 96 per cent of the population is Muslim, 3.8 per cent is Christian and the rest have some indigenous religions and beliefs. The total size of the population, according to the 2013 Population Census, is 1,857,181 persons showing an increase of 5.6 per cent over the projected figures of 1,783,424 for the year 2013. This may be attributed to different factors. On average, the population growth rate during the inter- census period (2003-2013) has been recorded as 3.1 per cent. Of the total population, the female has a share of 943,426 and the male has 913,755 with 100:97 ratio of female to male. Of the total population, 968,805 (52.2 per cent) are in the age group 0-18 years. The population density has accordingly grown to 174 persons per square kilometer in 2013, from 127 persons per square kilometer in 2003.

Almost three-fourth of the population depends on the agriculture sector for its livelihood. Small scale manufacturing activity is used for processing of peanuts, fish, and hides. Major dependence is on remittances from workers overseas. The country’s natural beauty has made it very attractive for the Europeans and they find it a safe pleasant abode especially during winter season, when most of the European countries have freezing temperatures.

January 2017 12 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Local Government Areas (LGAs) of The Gambia

The Gambia has the following eight administrative regions:

Banjul Kanifing

Brikama Kerewan

Mansa Konko Kuntaur

Janjabureh Basse

Each LGA has a number of districts varying from 3-9, except Kanifing which has only one district.

Name and Area Population Percentag Number Names of districts Administrative (km2) Census e share of of Capital 2013 the total District (provisional population s ) Total Gambia 10,699 1,857,181 100 43

Mansa Konko 1,628.0 81,042 4.4 6 Kiang Central (Lower River Kiang East Region) Kiang West Jarra Central Jarra East Jarra West

Kuntaur 1,466.5 96,703 5.3 5 Lower Saloum (Northern half Upper Saloum of Central River Nianija Division) Niani Sami

January 2017 13 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Kerewan 2,255.5 220,080 11.7 7 Lower Niumi Upper Niumi (North Bank Jokadu Region) Central Badibu Illiasa Lower Badibu Sabach Sanjal

Kanifing 75.6 377,134 20.3 1 Kanifing

Janjanbureh 1,427.8 125,204 6.7 5 Janjangbureh Fulladu West (Southern half Niamina East of Central River Region) Niamina West Niamina Dankunku

Brikama 1,764.3 688,744 37.2 9 Kombo North Kombo South (West Coast Kombo Central Region) Kombo East Foni Bondali Foni Brefet Foni Kansala Foni Bintang Karanai Foni Jarrol Basse 2,069.5 237,220 12.7 7 Kantora Tumana (Upper River Basse Fuladu East Region) Jimara Wuli West Wuli East Sandu Banjul 12.2 31,054 1.7 3 Banjul South Banjul Central Banjul North

Table 8. Administrative Regions and Districts with Population

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History

1In the remote past, The Gambia was part of the Empire of Ghana and the Kingdom of the Songhais.

The first written accounts of the region come from records of Arab traders in the 9th and 10th centuries A.D. Arab traders established the Trans-Saharan trade route for slaves, gold, and ivory. The Gambia later became part of the Kingdom of Mali in the 15th century. The Portuguese took over this trade using maritime routes. In 1588, the claimant to the Portuguese throne, Antonio, Prior of Crato, sold exclusive trade rights on The Gambia River to English merchants; this grant was confirmed by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I. In 1618, King James I granted a charter to a British company for trade with The Gambia and the Gold Coast (now Ghana).

In the late 17th century, and throughout the 18th century, England and France struggled continuously for political and commercial supremacy in the regions of the Senegal and Gambia Rivers. The 1783 Treaty of Versailles gave Great Britain possession of The Gambia, but the French retained a tiny enclave at Albreda on the north bank of the river, which was ceded to the United Kingdom in 1857. As many as 3 million slaves may have been taken from the region during the three centuries that the transatlantic slave trade operated.

The Gambia achieved independence on February 18, 1965, as a constitutional monarchy within the British Commonwealth. Shortly thereafter, the government proposed conversion from a monarchy to a republic with an elected president replacing the British monarch as Head of State. The proposal failed to receive the two-thirds majority required to amend the constitution, but the results won widespread attention abroad as testimony to The Gambia's observance of secret balloting, honest elections, and civil rights and liberties. On April 24, 1970, The Gambia became a republic following a referendum.

Until a military coup in July 1994, The Gambia was led by President Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara, who was re-elected five times. The relative stability of the Jawara era was first broken by a violent, unsuccessful coup attempt in 1981. The coup was led by Kukoi Samba Sanyang, who, on two occasions, had unsuccessfully sought election to parliament. After a week of violence which left several hundred dead, President Jawara, in London when the attack began, appealed to Senegal for help. Senegalese troops defeated the rebel force.

In the aftermath of the attempted coup, Senegal and The Gambia signed the 1982 Treaty of Confederation. The result, the Senegambia Confederation, aimed eventually to combine the armed forces of the two nations and to unify economies and currencies. The Gambia withdrew from the confederation in 1989. In July 1994, the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council (AFPRC) seized power in a military coup d'etat, deposing the government of Sir Dawda Jawara. Lieutenant Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh, chairman of the AFPRC, became head of state.

In late 2001 and early 2002, The Gambia completed a full cycle of presidential, legislative, and local elections, which foreign observers deemed free, fair, and transparent, albeit with some shortcomings.

1 http://www.channelafrica.co.za/Gambia

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President Yahya Jammeh, who was re-elected, took the oath of office again on December 21, 2001. The APRC maintained its strong majority in the National Assembly; particularly after the main opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) boycotted the legislative elections. President Jammeh was re-elected for a third five-year term on September 22, 2006 with 67 per cent of the vote. The UDP received 27 per cent of the vote, and instead of boycotting future elections, vowed to take part in the 2007 National Assembly elections. In the January 2007 parliamentary elections, the ruling Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) won 42 of the available 48 seats.

The 1970 constitution, which divided the government into independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches, was suspended after the 1994 military coup. As part of the transition process, the AFPRC established the Constitution Review Commission (CRC) through decree in March 1995. In accordance with the timetable for the transition to a democratically elected government, the commission drafted a new constitution for The Gambia, which was approved by referendum in August 1996. The constitution provides for a strong presidential government, a unicameral legislature, an independent judiciary, and the protection of human rights.

The ruling party, having won the 2001, 2006, and 2011 elections was confident to win the 2016 elections, but in a great surprise, the joint opposition coalition of seven parties, led by Mr. Adama Borrow gave them the biggest upset in the history of West Africa by winning the presidential elections. The ruling party also set a good example of accepting the results of the elections and congratulated the President-Elect and agreed to transfer the power peacefully to the candidate of the winning coalition. However, a week after the election result was announced, in another surprise move, the ruling party announced that the results were not acceptable and that a re-election will be held. However, the international pressure forced the defeated president to hand over the government to the newly elected President, and Mr. Adama Borrow subsequently took over as the new President.

Tourism

Every year, thousands of international visitors come to The Gambia, attracted by its beaches, birds, sunshine, and the country's biggest asset: the Gambian people, whose hospitality and friendliness have made it "The Smiling Coast." Tourism has become the fastest-growing sector of the economy, contributing 12 – 16 per cent of the country's GDP and supporting over 35,000 direct and 40,000 indirect jobs. More and more visitors are returning year after year. The residents always welcome the visitors, feel pleasure in guiding them, and become so friendly with the strangers while making conversation with them in English, French and other languages. Everywhere, one can find the residents - children or grownups, ladies and gents, literate or illiterate - that would greet and welcome the foreigners, soon become friendly, and offer assistance and support.

This is a rare quality of the local residents, normally not found in most countries. The visitors feel comfortable and secure during their stay and can find inexpensive places to stay for as long as they can afford in a very pleasant weather.

The Gambia's natural beauty and proximity to Europe has made it one of the larger markets for tourism in West Africa, boosted by government and private sector investments in eco- tourism and upscale facilities. In 2012, however, sluggish tourism led to a decline in GDP.

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Tourism brings in about one-fifth of the country’s GDP. Agriculture also took a hit in 2012 due to unfavorable weather patterns.

Economy

The Gambia has a liberal, market-based economy, characterized by traditional subsistence agriculture, a historic reliance on groundnuts (peanuts) for export earnings, a re-export trade built up around its ocean port, low import duties, minimal administrative procedures, a fluctuating exchange rate with no exchange controls, and a significant tourism industry.

Agriculture accounts for roughly 30 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP), and employs a high percentage of the labor force largely in subsistence level farming. Food crops include rice, cassava, yams, sorghum, and millet. Peanuts is grown on almost all suitable land, and is considered as an important cash crop; however, the production fluctuates according to the weather conditions, drought, and pest infestation. Within agriculture, peanut production accounts for 6.9 per cent of GDP, other crops 8.3 per cent, livestock 5.3 per cent, fishing 1.8 per cent, and forestry 0.5 per cent. Industry accounts for approximately 14 per cent of GDP and services approximately 54 per cent. The limited amount of manufacturing is primarily agriculture based (e.g., peanut processing, bakeries, brewery and tannery). Other manufacturing activities include soap, soft drinks, and clothing. Commercial fishing for both domestic consumption and export markets is expanding. Of the work force 15 years and above in both sexes 31.5 per cent are associated with wholesale or retail trade, 31 per cent with agriculture, forestry and fishing industry, 9.8 per cent with manufacturing, 5.3 per cent with construction, 4.4 per cent with transportation and storage, and the rest are smaller percentages of the workforce with 13 other trades.2

Previously, the U.K. and other EU countries constituted The Gambia's major domestic export markets. However, in recent years India, Thailand, and China have gained increasing proportions of Gambian exports. The African sub-region, including Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, and Ghana are also important trade partners. China and Brazil have become important source countries for Gambian imports. The U.K., EU countries, and Senegal also command a large share of Gambian imports.

3The Gambia has sparse natural resource deposits and a limited agricultural base, and relies in part on remittances from workers overseas and tourist receipts. About three-quarters of the population depend on the agricultural sector for its livelihood and the sector provides for about one-fifth of GDP. The agricultural sector has untapped potential - less than half of arable land is cultivated. Small-scale manufacturing activity features the processing of peanuts, fish, and hides.

2 Gambia LFS 2012 revised final report 3 http://www.theodora.com/wfbcurrent/gambia_the/gambia_the_economy.html

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The principal objective of the country’s medium-term development agenda – the Program for Accelerated Growth and Employment (PAGE)- lays emphasis on the need to improve the human resource potential of the country by: improving employment levels; per capita Income; human development and gender equity to improve the country’s competitiveness and development prospects. The programmes in the budget are mainly based on the country’s vision 2016, 2020, and 2025, besides the PAGE.

The country’s outlook for growth remains positive, even in the face of major challenges; like the Ebola outbreak and delayed rains during the 2016 season, as the GDP is projected at 4.7 per cent in 2015, and 5.5 per cent in 2016, due to the sustained recovery in Tourism and Agriculture. The recent report of the Finance Minister regarding the budget estimates of 2017, however, reveals that the contribution of the agriculture sector has consistently declined from 24 per cent to 21 per cent in 2015, and on the contrary, the service sector’s contribution has increased from 62 per cent in 2011 to 64 per cent in 2015. The average real GDP growth moderated to 2.4 per cent, far below the 5.6 per cent average growth registered over the period 2007-2010. The decline in the average real GDP growth was the result of shocks in the main growth driving sectors of the economy – agriculture and tourism, since 2011.

The Gambia was ranked 172 out of 187 countries in the 2014 UN Human Development Index. Poverty rates in The Gambia fell from 58 percent in 2003 to 48.4 percent in 2010 (ibid). However, extreme poverty remains widespread, with nearly 40 per cent of the population subsisting on less than US$1 per person, per day (GBoS, 2010). Income poverty remains concentrated in rural areas, particularly among households headed by subsistence farmers and unskilled workers (with poverty rates of 79.3 percent and 65.4 percent, respectively).

Employment opportunities

In The Gambia, the employment opportunities are very rare. The government has limited vacancies in the different sectors, and the number of applicants is always far greater than the vacancies, so there is always a tough competition for the posts. The private sector is also not so expanded; therefore, many talented and qualified persons are either unemployed or under- employed. The tendency for emigration in search of jobs is always on the rise.

Many educated and qualified young persons who are disappointed by not getting any gainful employment at the national level are seeking jobs in other countries.

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Pajame is an old man of 69 living in Bakau. He is the owner of a big house but lives alone. He got his early education in Banjul, up to Grade 12 and was then looking for some gainful employment at the national level, but could not succeed in spite of sending applications at all possible places where he was expecting to have some vacancies. He failed to get any job, though he was interviewed by several employers. Desperately, he decided to migrate to Europe in search of getting some livelihood. He went to several European countries and ultimately, he settled in Denmark, where he spent several decades. He learnt technical skills in electronics, and worked there in electronic repair and maintenance workshops. He married a Danish lady while in Denmark and had a son who is now in his thirties. A few years ago, Pajame wanted to return to his homeland for good. By that time, he had already divorced his wife, and his son - now married - was living in a separate house on his own. Pajame has been back in Bakau for the last several years, living all alone in his old big house.

Though a skilled technician, he could not continue with his technical skills; rather, he started looking for some employment. At this age, he mentioned that he desires to be recruited by some international agencies as a security man or administrative assistant. A very intelligent person, though highly skilled but reluctant to use his skill to get his livelihood, is a candidate for paid employment. Many such persons like Pajame would add to the unemployment figures.

Migration of 15+ persons and the reasons for migration

The male and female have different reasons for migration, as indicated in Table 9 below. Of the male migrants, 52 per cent migrate for work, followed by 21 per cent for joining family, and 10 per cent for education. Of the female migrants, 60 per cent migrate for marriage, 23 per cent for joining family, and less than 5 per cent each for various reasons mentioned in the table.

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The Gambia Migration status Male Female Total Work 77,641 6,952 84,593 Other land related problems / disputes 8,188 8,104 16,293 Education 14,986 5,198 20,184 Marriage 3,865 101,238 105,103 Join family 31,549 39,061 70,610 Other reasons 12,404 7,392 19,795 Total 148,633 167,945 316,578 Percentage Work 52.2 4.1 26.7 Other land related problems / disputes 5.5 4.8 5.1 Education 10.1 3.1 6.4 Marriage 2.6 60.3 33.2 Join family 21.2 23.3 22.3 Other reasons 8.3 4.4 6.3 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0

Table 9. Reasons for migration - adapted from LFS 2012 table 5.3

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Other reasons 8%

Join family 21% Work 52%

Education Marriage 10% 3%

Other land related problems / disputes 6%

Figure 5. Reasons for male migration (Source LFS 2012)

3% 5% 4% 5% 23%

60%

Work Other land related problems / disputes Education Marriage Join family Other reasons

Figure 6. Reasons for female migration (Source LFS 2012)

January 2017 21 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Methodology of data collection for the OOSC

The major sources of data on OOSC used for this analysis included the MoBSE Yearbooks, GBoS Population Census reports, DHS, MICS, LFS and other reports available on different websites. Some of the offices were requested to provide the required data, for further analysis not readily available on websites. For this study, the survey reports and available data were to be used as secondary data sources. The primary data collection was limited to Focus Group Discussions, to get the qualitative data on the barriers to education and the reasons for dropping out from schools from different perceptions. The FGDs also collected the opinions of the participants on the possible solutions to bring the OOSC to school and reduce the dropouts from schools. Separate FGDs were conducted with teachers of schools, members of Regional Technical Advisory Committees, school children, community members/parents, Out-Of- School-Children, members of School Management Committees and Mothers’ Clubs. Indepth interviews were conducted with government officers of several ministries to get their opinions on from the supply side. A detailed list of the officers met is given in the inception report.

Data quality

MoBSE collects EMIS data on an annual basis and prepares a yearbook of about 450 pages. It is an extremely useful publication, including quantitative data on almost all aspects of education. The presence of such data can, of course, facilitate work for researchers, planners and managers, but the information in a summarized form is lacking for the general public and the readers like parents, community members, or any person interested in getting general information on education. A summary of this comprehensive report in two to four pagers to include the general statistics on number of schools, students, teachers by type of school, by level, by gender and by region, if made available in a printed form, will help them appreciate the efforts of the ministry and the government. The EMIS staff is competent enough to produce quality reports and summarized information for general use by the public. However, an exposure of the staff to the EMIS activities in other countries will be more useful to improve the output layouts, data management, and reporting system. The GBoS data collection, sampling procedure, data processing, and reporting system are of very high quality and standard, and are in no way less than those of developed countries.

Public expenditure

The Government of The Gambia is exhibiting a strong commitment to the development of the education sector. Despite the limited resources and dependence of developmental projects on external financing, the government still endeavours to spend more than 20 per cent of the budget on education. The government spending has been more than 4 per cent of the GDP for the last several years, which shows a firm commitment to the development of the education sector. However, this budget mostly caters for the salaries of staff and other committed expenses, thus leaving only about 5% of the budgeted amount to the operational development costs. The tuition fee at the basic level in the government schools has been waived off, but the out-of-pocket expenses and opportunity cost are still major barriers for the poor population to get education.

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Organisational structure of the Ministry of Education

The Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) and the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology (MoHERST) are separate ministries mandated to oversee the different levels of education in the country. Each ministry is headed by a Minister, while the Permanent Secretaries are the chief executives of their respective ministries. At MoBSE, there are two Deputy Permanent Secretaries assisting the Permanent Secretary, as well as several Principal Education Officers, Senior Education Officers, and Directors responsible for the implementation of educational programmes, coordination, administrative, and financial management.

The Education System in The Gambia

The Gambian school education structure has four tiers; Early Childhood Development (ECD), Lower Basic Education (LBE), Upper Basic Education (UBE), and Senior Secondary Education (SSE)/ or Vocational Education and Training (VET). The ECD centres in general enroll students aged 3-6 years. The official age for enrollment into Lower Basic Education is 7 years, and the students enrolled are supposed to stay for six years, followed by three years of Upper Basic Education. The Lower Basic Education schools offer education from Grade 1 to 6, ideally for children aged 7-12 years. The Upper Basic Education schools offer education facilities from Grade 7-9, ideally for the age group 13-15 years. This whole nine years of schooling constitutes basic education. The secondary education is also for three years, after basic education. The Senior Secondary Education schools offer courses from Grade 10-12, ideally for the age group 16-18 years. At this level, the streaming for three years to the technical and vocational education is also available besides the general secondary education.

During the past 15 years, the education sector has shown considerable improvement in all sub-sectors including ECD, LBE, UBE and SSE. The education sector pursued the following policy objectives:

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Indicator Status in 2000 Expected results in Comments/ Status 2015 in 2016 Increase GIR of ECD 17.7% 40%

Percentage of new 27.5% 50% 51% entrants to grade 1 with ECD experience

Gross Intake Rate 76.3% 100% GIR LBE 121.6%

GER of Lower Basic 71.7% 100% GER LBE 104.0%

Percentage of 72.8% 90% 82.3% qualified teachers

Pupil – teacher ratio 33.3:1 45:1

Reduce repetition 10.6% 4% (In 2015 it was 5%) rate 4.7% in 2016

Enrolment of girls for - 50% 51.3% all levels of education

Reduction in Illiteracy 52.5% 26.3% rate of 15-24 years old

Reduction in illiteracy 62.9% 31.5% rate of 15 + years old

Table 10. Progress of selected indicators in the year 2015 and 2016. Adapted from Gambia Education for All 2015 National Review - Page 11

Early Childhood Development/ Early Childhood Education

The ECD centres are operated by Public, Private or Madrassah service providers. The total number of these centres in the whole country is 1,141 including 376 (33%) of public sector, 576 (60%) of private sector and 174 (15%) centres run by Madrassahs with the enrolment of 23,897 (24%), 60,680 (60%) and 13,964 (14%) students respectively. The ownership of 15 centres (2%) is not certain. The enrolment in the public sector ECD centres is 24%, in private sector centres it is 60% and in Madrassah operated centres it is 14%. The remaining 2% of the enrolment (1,808) is in the 15 centres with uncertain ownership. The STTR in the Government centres is 1:46; in private centres, it is 1:42; and in the Madrassah ECD centres, it is 1:71.

ECD is the first step for a child to get exposed to educational activities. The rapid growth in the number of centres indicates the interest of the parents to get their children admitted in the ECD centres. The number of ECD centres in the public sector is less than 50% of the total. More than 50% share in number has been taken by the private sector ECD centres, thus attracting more than 60% of the enrolment at this level.

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Since the private sector has to recover the cost from the beneficiaries, along with some profit on investment, the users of these facilities have to pay more than what they pay at the public sector centres. The beneficiaries are, therefore, indirectly exposed to commercial activities rather than a public-sector service. The government should take steps to own the majority of ECD centres, as opposed to letting the private sector own them.

Parental education plays a pivotal role in the children’s education, and the more educated the parents are, the more they would like their children to get educated and admitted into ECD centres. The MICS 2010 reported that 39% of the children admitted into ECD centres have their mothers’ education at secondary level, 23% have their mothers’ education up to primary level and mothers of only 13% of children admitted in ECD classes have no education. The difference in urban and rural areas is also evident; 22% of urban are admitted in ECD centres, compared to 15% of rural children. At the national level, from the year 2013 to 2016, there was an increase of 28% in the number of ECD centres, and 32% in enrolment. The increase in the number of centres is somewhat less than the increase in enrolment.

In general, the ratio of the ECD centres to the LBE schools and the gross and net enrolment rates at ECD levels, coupled with a rapid growing enrolment over the years, are encouraging indicators for a developing country like The Gambia to exhibit the interest, seriousness, and enthusiasm of the population in their children’s education. Though it is not a standard education efficiency indicator, it shows the confidence of the people in the system of education, as well as their interest and enthusiasm to get their children educated. The gross enrolment ratio (GER) at the ECD level has now considerably increased from 21% in 2006 to 43.8% in 2016 - almost doubled during a decade. The total enrolment in 2016 includes 2,332 children aged less than 3 years, and 9,494 children aged more than 6 years. The number of the children aged 3-6 years in ECD centres is 88,523. The NER for the ECD level is, therefore, 38.7%. An increasing demand for the ECD centres by the people, and the government’s positive response to satisfy the needs contribute to the progress in this area. The following table shows a comparison of 2013 and 2016 ECD data:

Grade/ Total projected Enrolment in ECD No. of Enrolment in ECD in No. of Level population in 2016 in in Public, private centre 2016 centre this age group as per schools and s in s in Census 2013 madrassahs in the 2013 2016 year 2013

Total Girls Boys Total Girls Boys Total Girls Boys

ECD age 223,9 109,3 114,5 75,8 38,8 37,0 100,3 51,0 49,2 3-6 (Level 892 1,141 39 59 80 49 45 04 49 94 55 1-4)

Table 11. ECD age group population, enrolment, and number of centres - Adapted from MoBSE 2016 Year Book

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The official age to attend ECD centres ranges from 3-6 years. There is a constant growing tendency in;

- Number of ECD centres, - Number of classrooms in the centres and - Number of children enrolled in these centres.

In the year 2013, the number of ECD centres in the whole country was 892 and it grew to 1,141, showing an increase of 28% over a period of four years. There is a corresponding increase of 29% in the number of classrooms over this period. In the year 2013, the number of ECD classrooms in all the centres was 2,381, that grew to 3,076 in the year 2016. The increase in enrolment in these ECD centres is 24.4%, from 75,849 in 2013 to 100,349 in 2016.4 It is encouraging to note that the ECD education system is gaining popularity in The Gambia. The more the children enter the early education programme, the higher the rate of retention of children in the basic and secondary education, and thus accordingly the rate of drop outs decreases.

Of the total 100,349 students in ECD classes, the enrolment by level is 46,759, 28,832, 18,664 and 6,094 in levels 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively. The new entrants in ECD classes are considerably in higher number indicating an increasing confidence in the system.

The Government has recognized the significance of ECE/ECD programme and the Education Sector Policy 2016-2030 has planned the following policy actions on ECD:

1. Government acknowledges the importance of the early years of development for children. The capacities with which children are born enable them to communicate, learn, and develop, but these need to be supported and guided to ascertain that children develop holistically and positively. Government will therefore take a more active role in the provision of facilities and services for ECD, especially in communities where such services are not available. Early development centres will become part of lower basic schools in ‘deprived’ communities.

2. Government will introduce universal access to ECD services, and to this end, support will be provided for the implementation of the community-based and the annexed centres. In the case of the privately-run ECD centres, the government will continue to monitor compliance.

3. In the main, however, MoBSE will continue to co-ordinate, support, and facilitate the early years’ education, care, and development of children through monitoring, assessing, and developing guidelines for the establishment and management of nursery schools.

4 MoBSE/ Statistical Yearbook 2015/2016 ECD Table II.1.1.1 page 22

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4. The Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education has developed strong linkages with other government departments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and committees to promote an integrated approach to ECD. Through these linkages, MoBSE will participate in the implementation of the National Policy on Integrated Early Childhood Development, and strengthen its ties and collaboration with parties interested in this area. Through the multi-sectoral working group and the committees set up for the promotion of ECD, partnerships and alliances with civil society and international agencies will be promoted and sustained.

5. The ECD learning standards will be reviewed, the school readiness strategy will be strengthened, preparatory classes for over aged children will be established and partnership in ECD services delivery will be strengthened. Different media of communication and advocacy will be used to promote ECD

6. Communities will be mobilised, sensitized, and motivated to initiate and maintain ECD centres. They will be expected to complement government’s efforts by providing the necessary inputs and participating in programme design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The ECD Parenting program will be reviewed and improved through community based approach

7. The Gambia College ECD module/curriculum will be strengthened, and Government will continue to promote and encourage the establishment of private ECD training institutions. Furthermore, minimum standards for Early Childhood Development services will be developed for both private and public institutions. Opportunities for interested people to study ECD to graduate level will be created, and ECD annexation will be extended to the urban areas.5

The Education Policy 2004-2015 had mentioned paragraphs against Serial No. 1,3,4 and 6 as policy action points in the policy document 2004-2015, but in addition to these, three more advanced action points at serial No. 2,5 and 7 above were also added to the Education Policy 2016-2030. In The Gambia, during the last two decades, the ECD programme has shown an enormous growth. The programme is equally popular in all regions and liked by people drawn from different communities.

Due to an increase in demand for the ECD at regional and national levels, more and more centres were opened to cater for the increasing enrolment by public and private sectors. The following table shows the number of centres opened in 1999, and the number in 2016 at national and regional levels.

5 Education Sector Policy 2016-2030 Para 5.5 page 10

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No. of ECD Centres by Region in 1999 and 2016 Region/LGA No. of centres in No. of centres in Increase in 1999 2016 number during this period Banjul 14 78 145 Kanifing 209 Brikama 104 389 285 Mansakonko 27 76 49 Kerewan 15 151 136 Kuntaur 60 28 115 Janjanbureh 83 Basse 13 159 146 Total 265 1,141 876

Table 12: Showing an increase in number of ECD centres from 1999 to 2016

With the increase in the number of centres, there was a corresponding increase in enrolment. The number of ECD centres increased by more than four times in 2016, from the number in 1999, and the enrolment increased more than three times during this period. The following table shows the increase in the number of students by gender and region in 1999 and 2016.

ECD Enrolment by Region and gender in 1999 and 2016 Region/LGA Enrolment in 1999 Enrolment in 2016 Increase during this Total Female Male Total female male period Banjul 10,039 5,136 4,903 1,793 901 892 12,567 (more than 20,813 10,776 10,037 Kanifing 4 times) Brikama 11,603 5,748 5,822 41,672 21,199 20,473 30,069 Mansakonko 2,859 1,608 1,251 9,483 4,781 4,702 6,624 Kerewan 1,768 914 854 4,303 2,259 2,044 2,535 Kuntaur 2,065 925 1,140 5,436 2,865 2,571 6,184 Janjanbureh 2,813 1,466 1,347 Basse 1,549 740 809 14,036 6,847 7,189 12,487 Total 29,910 15,071 14,779 100,349 51,094 49,255 70,439

Table 13: ECD enrolment by region and gender in 1999 and 2016

January 2017 28 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Ownership of ECD Centres

The private sector has 50% share in number of the ECD centres while 60% in enrolment. There may be several factors for the success of private sector in ECD but the one more obvious seems to be the ratio of female facilitators to the male facilitators in private centres. In government ECD centres only 30% are female facilitators and 70% are male facilitators. In private ECD centres, on the other hand the female facilitators are 63% and male facilitators are only 37% showing a clear difference. Throughout the world the female preschool teachers are considered as the more successful teachers, as male teachers are not considered to be inherent nurtures. In many countries, families don’t enroll their children at centres where there are male teachers. This profession is considered to be exclusively for female teachers.

Figure 7. ECD children Percentage of children age 36-59 months attending early childhood education 45

40 38.6

25 22.4 22.7 19.1 20 17.2 15 15 13

0 Female Male Urban Rural Mother’s education- Mother’s education Mother’s education None Primary Secondary

January 2017 29 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

MICS 2010 report has shown interesting figures of 3 to 5-year-old children attending preschool with difference in gender, location (urban, rural), and mother’s education in the following table:

ECD children Percentage of children age 36-59 months attending early childhood education Female 19.1

Male 17.2

Urban 22.4

Rural 15.0

Mother’s education- None 13.0

Mother’s education Primary 22.7

Mother’s education Secondary 38.6

Table 14: ECD age 3-5 percentage of children attending ECD centres by gender, location and mother’s education – Source: MICS Report 2010

Region / Projected MF 3-6-year- Female Male enrolment LGA population old enrolment of age 3-6 in Enrolment in 2016 ECD/ECE centres Banjul 3,740 1,640 842 798

Kanifing 45,482 18,649 9,692 8,957

Brikama 83,059 36,029 18,371 17,658

Mansakonko 9,764 3,856 2,042 1,814

Kerewan 26,537 8,616 4,339 4,277

Kuntaur 11,667 2,591 1,367 1,224

Janjanbureh 15,093 4,964 2,628 2,336

Basse 28,597 12,178 6,156 6,022

Total 223,939 88,523 44,437 43,086

Table 15. Population of ECD age by region and enrolment by gender – Source: MoBSE Year Book 2015-16 and GBoS projected population based on 2013 Census.

January 2017 30 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

The difference in enrolment in ECD centres in this table and the earlier tables is because of the age-specific enrolment. In this table, only the children aged 3-6 years are considered, whereas in the earlier tables, children aged less than 3 years and more than 6 years are also considered.

At the national level, the percentage of children aged 3-6 years enrolled in ECD centres is 39. For the different regions/LGAs, the enrolment of 3-6-year-old children ranges from 22% to 44%. Kuntaur (22%) and Janjanbureh (24%) have the lower percentage of children enrolled in ECD centres, whereas Banjul (43.8%), Brikama (43.4%) and Basse (42.6%) children enrolled in the ECD centres. This is followed by Kanifing (41%), Mansakonko (39.5%) and Kerewan (32.5%).

Lower Basic Education

The number of LBE schools is 958; including 522 (55%) government funded (484 government schools and 38 grant-aided schools); 145 (15%) private schools; and 291 (30%) Madrassahs. The total enrolment in these LBE schools as per the data of yearbook 2015-16 is 308,729. This includes 221,204 (72%) in government and grant-aided schools, 28,402 (9%) in private schools, and 87,525 (28%) in Madrassahs. The number of LBE schools increased by 21% from 2013 to 2016, whereas the enrolment increased by 20% during this time. The STTR in LBE at 1:4 which seems to be appropriate, but there is a considerable variation in different ownership of the school. For the private schools, it is 1:31; for the government schools, it is 1:36; for Madrassahs, it is 1:51; and for the grant-aided schools, it is 1:52.

The projected population of children aged 7 to 12 in 2016, as per the 2013 census, and the enrolment in LBE by region and gender are given in the following table.

January 2017 31 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

LBE Age 7-12

Region Projected MF Enrolment in Female Male enrolment population of LBE enrolment age 7-12 Banjul 5,271 4,902 2,528 2,374

Kanifing 64,092 65,427 34,889 30,538

Brikama 117,047 117,397 59,640 57,757

Mansakonko 13,759 15,044 7,683 7,361

Kerewan 37,395 36,611 18,207 18,404

Kuntaur 16,441 11,611 6,477 5,134

Janjanbureh 21,269 18,764 10,192 8,572

Basse 40,299 38,973 19,020 19,953

Total 315,573 308,729 158,636 150,093

Table 16. Population of LBE age children by region and gender – Source GBoS 2013 Census Projection & MoBSE 2015-16 Yearbook

The GER and NER calculated based on the projected population of the 2003 Census may be found in the following table. From 2010 to 2016, the GER and NER have shown a considerable increase.

Table LBE GER & NER - Adapted from EMIS yearbook 2016

LBE GER LBE- NER

Year Total MF Female % % Male % Total MF % Female % Male % 2010 88.3 89.1 87.5 74.6 75.6 73.7

2011 86.5 87.3 85.6 74.4 75.7 73.1

2012 90.2 91.4 89.1 77.9 79.8 76

2013 92.8 93.9 91.7 74.7 76.5 72.9

2014 97.1 98.7 95.4 78.1 80.6 75.6

2015 101.2 103.5 99 81.9 84.7 79.1

2016 104 106.7 101.4 84.6 87.8 81.4

Table 17. LBE- GER Table 18. LBE NER

January 2017 32 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Gender 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 In 2010, the GER and NER were 88.3 per cent and 74.6 per cent, which have increased to 104Female per cent % and 84.689.6 per cent89.9 respectively 89.0. Since88.6 this calculation91.1 has 91.2been made91.9 based on the projected population, and the projected population based on 2003 census is somewhat lessMale than % the actual 89.5census in 88.52013 , the 87.1exact rates91.1 will be 190.6 per cent or90.5 2 per cent91.5 less than what is stated in the above table. Total % 89.5 89.2 88.0 89.8 90.9 90.6 91.7 Grade/ Projected population Net enrolment in LBE in Level in this age bracket in Gross Enrolment in LBE 2016 Table 20. Transition2016, rate 7from-12 yearLBE asto UBE, by year infrom 2016 2010 to 2016 – MoBSE Yearbook per Census 2013 2015-16 Total Girls Boys Total Girls Boys Total Girls Boys LBE Grade There is a constant315,5 increase156, in 158,96the number308,72 of LBE158,63 schools, 150,09with corre251,0sponding130,4 increase in 1-6 120,529 enrolment and in the73 number612 of teachers1 at 9LBE level6, as shown3 in the 23following 89 table: Age 7-12

TableAcademic 19. S howingNo. of population Total of ageFemale 7-12 and enrolmentMale Repeaters in LBE schools Total by genderQualified: GBoS 2013 Year LBE Enrolment Teachers Teachers Census projection and MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16 schools

During2010 the past678 few years228,105, there has115,188 been a112,917 considerable 6,870 increase 4,186in the number3,181 of schools and enrolment, as well as the number of teachers and the trained teachers. In 2010, there were2013 678 LBE789 schools ,256,912 and in 2016130,184 the number 126,728 rose to8,835 958, showing6,868 an increase5,592 of 41 per cent. The enrolment in LBE schools was 228,105 in 2010, and in 2016 it is 308,729, with 35 per2016 cent increase.958 The 308,729number of 158,636girls enrolled 150,093 in LBE in16,0 201038 was 8,730115,188 , and7,592 the number of boys in the same year was 112,917. In 2016, the figures show 158,636 girls and 150,093 boys, indicating an increase of 38 per cent for girls and 33 per cent for boys. The number of Tableteachers 21. Numberalso increased of LBE schools, from 4,186 enrolment to 8,730 by, gendershowing and a 108repeaters per cent, number increase of teachers in number and , and qualifiedthat of trained teachers teachers in the years grew 2010, from 20133,181 and to 20167,592 – ,Source: showing MoBSE an increase Yearbook of 1392015 per-16 cent during this period. The STTR for LBE in 2010 was 1:72, and in 2016 it is 1:41. This shows good progress in the availability of trained teachers during this period. Upper Basic Education Almost 51 per cent (484) of LBE schools are owned by the government, 4 per cent (38) schools Theare grantnumber-aided, of UBE 15 perschools cent is (145) 390, areshowin privateg an schools increase, and of 141 30 persch oolscent from (436) 2010 are madrassahs.to 2016; thisThe is enrolment a 36 per cent in the increase government compared schools to an o increasef girls and of boys 17 per is cent199,112 in enrolment (65 per centduring of thisthe total period.enrolment Of the in 3LBE90 UBE); in grantschools,-aide 158d schoolsschools ,(41 it is per 22,092 cent) are(7 perowned cent by); thine privategovernment, schools 32 , it is UBE28,402 schools (9 per (8 cent per) ;cent and) arein madrassahs grant-aided,, 58it is schools 59,123 (15 (19 per per cent cent) ).are The private girls andoutnumber 142 (36 in all pertypes cent of) schoolsare Madrassahs., except madrassah The STTR sfor where government, the number grant -ofaided, boys private is more, and than Madrassahs the number of aregirls. 1:25, In LBE 1:33,, the 1:16 boys, and outnumber 1:28 respectively. in all types The of students schools ofin repetright ageition admittedof a grade in thanUBE theare girls. 53,This589, is inwhereas spite of3,943 the studentsfact that havethe girlsages haveof less higher than 13rate years of enrolment, and 33,306 in haveLBE. ages In the of total 16enrolment years and of 308,729,above. The those total agedenrolment less thanin these 7 years schools are is11,302 90,838. (4per The cenGrosst), andEnrolment 50,347 (16 Rateper cent in Upper) are Basicover Educationthe age of from 13 yearsthe years. The 2010 number to 2016 of byright gender age isstudents shown in in the LBE follo schoolswing is table: 247,080. Of the total enrolment, the number of special needs children is 4,615 (1.5 per cent), with the major disabilities being vision, hearing, speaking, and physical. 97 per cent of the teaching staff of government schools, 80 per cent of grant-aided, 80 per cent of private school and 55 per cent of madrassahs are qualified teachers.

The transition rate from lower basic education to upper basic education from the year 2010 to 2016 is given in the following table:

January 2017 3334

January 2017 33 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Gender 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Female % 89.6 89.9 89.0 88.6 91.1 91.2 91.9

Male % 89.5 88.5 87.1 91.1 90.6 90.5 91.5

Total % 89.5 89.2 88.0 89.8 90.9 90.6 91.7

Table 20. Transition rate from LBE to UBE, by year from 2010 to 2016 – MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16

There is a constant increase in the number of LBE schools, with corresponding increase in enrolment and in the number of teachers at LBE level, as shown in the following table:

Academic No. of Total Female Male Repeaters Total Qualified Year LBE Enrolment Teachers Teachers schools

2010 678 228,105 115,188 112,917 6,870 4,186 3,181

2013 789 256,912 130,184 126,728 8,835 6,868 5,592

2016 958 308,729 158,636 150,093 16,038 8,730 7,592

Table 21. Number of LBE schools, enrolment by gender and repeaters, number of teachers and qualified teachers in the years 2010, 2013 and 2016 – Source: MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16

Upper Basic Education

The number of UBE schools is 390, showing an increase of 141 schools from 2010 to 2016; this is a 36 per cent increase compared to an increase of 17 per cent in enrolment during this period. Of the 390 UBE schools, 158 schools (41 per cent) are owned by the government, 32 UBE schools (8 per cent) are grant-aided, 58 schools (15 per cent) are private and 142 (36 per cent) are Madrassahs. The STTR for government, grant-aided, private, and Madrassahs are 1:25, 1:33, 1:16, and 1:28 respectively. The students of right age admitted in UBE are 53,589, whereas 3,943 students have ages of less than 13 years, and 33,306 have ages of 16 years and above. The total enrolment in these schools is 90,838. The Gross Enrolment Rate in Upper Basic Education from the years 2010 to 2016 by gender is shown in the following table:

January 2017 34 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Gender 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Female % 65.6 66.2 66.7 67.3 68.2 68.2 67.6

Male % 66.9 65.5 66.8 68.9 68.2 68.3 65.9

Total % 66.2 65.8 66.7 68.1 68.12 68.3 66.8

Table 22. GER UBE from the year 2010 to 2016 - MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16

The above table shows a fluctuating GER between a range of 65 and 69 per cent during the period 2010-2016. A constant upward trend is lacking in GER.

The projected population of children aged 13-15, and the enrolment in UBE in the year 2016 by region and gender are given in the following table:

UBE - Age 13-15

Region/LGA Population of MF Enrolment Female Male age 13-15 in UBE in 2016 enrolment enrolment

Banjul 2,438 1,597 833 764

Kanifing 29,638 25,896 13,559 12,337

Brikama 54,126 36,901 18,663 18,238

Mansakonko 6,363 4,164 2,142 2,022

Kerewan 17,293 9,176 4,579 4,597

Kuntaur 7,602 2,514 1,480 1,034

Janjanbureh 9,836 4,401 2,542 1,859

Basse 18,635 6,189 2,796 3,393

Total 145,930 90,838 46,594 44,244

Table 23. Population of age 13-15, and enrolment by LGA and gender in UBE - MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16 and GBoS projection based on 2013 census

The female enrolment in all LGAs, except Basse and Kerewan, is higher than the male enrolment. The following table shows that the GER of UBE fluctuates between 65.5 per cent and 68.9 per cent for female and male enrolments, whereas in the year 2016 the NER for boys is much higher 41.1 per cent compared to 36.98 per cent for girls.

January 2017 35 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

UBE GER & NER UBE GER UBE- NER

Total MF Female Male Total MF Female Year % % % % % Male % 2010 66.2 65.6 66.9 2011 65.8 66.2 65.5 2012 66.7 66.7 66.8 2013 68.06 67.3 68.9 2014 68.12 68.0 68.2 2015 68.3 68.2 68.3 2016 66.8 67.6 65.9 39.09 36.98 41.1

Table 24. UBE GER from the year 2010-2016 Table 25. UBE NER for the year 2016

Note: The UBE GER is the same as reported in MoBSE Yearbook 2016. The actual may be 1 or 2 points less than the reported figures, as the calculation has been made on the projected census of 2003. The UBE NER has been calculated on the basis of the population census 2013.

Grade/ Projected population in Net enrolment in 2016 Level this age group in 2016 as Gross Enrolment in 2016

per Census 2013

Total Girls Boys Total Girls Boys Total Girls Boys

UBE Grade 7-9 145,930 73,619 72,311 90,838 46,554 44,284 53,589 24,933 28,656 Age 13-15

Table 26. Population of children aged 13-15 and enrolment in grades 7-9 in 2016 - MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16 and GBoS projection based on 2013 census

The above table shows that 36.7 per cent of children aged 13-15 are enrolled in UBE schools; including 33.9 per cent girls and 39.6 per cent boys. The boys have a higher percentage of right age enrolment (NER) at UBE level compared to girls. The overall enrolment percentage of girls is 63.2 per cent compared to 61.2 per cent of boys (GER).

Academic No. of Total Female Male Repeaters Total Qualified Year schools enrolment Teachers Teachers 2010 249 75,635 37,902 37,733 2,275 1,301 1,214

2013 306 84,825 42,421 42,404 2,936 2,873 2,516

2016 390 90,838 46,554 44,284 2,791 3,901 3,652

Table 27: Showing growth of UBE schools, enrolment and number of total teachers and qualified teachers - Source: MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16 & 2013-14

January 2017 36 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

The number of UBE schools increased from 249 in 2010 to 390 in 2016, showing an increase of 56.6 per cent during the span of 6 years. This increase in enrolment is in response to a 20 per cent increase in enrolment. Corresponding to this increase, there is an increase of 200 per cent in the number of teachers. In 2010, the total number of teachers in UBE schools was 1,301, whereas in 2016 the total number rose to 3,901.

Senior Secondary Education

The number of senior secondary education schools in the whole country is 160, as reported in the yearbook 2015-16. In 2010, the number of SSE schools was 99, showing an increase of 61 per cent during this time. The total enrolment in 2016 is 56,001, including 28,629 girls and 27,372 boys. In the year 2010, the enrolment in SSE was 35,532; this included 16,415 girls and 19,117 boys. There is an increase of 20,469 students; including 12,214 girls and 8,255 boys during this period. The overall increase in enrolment is 58 per cent, which closely corresponds to the increase in the number of schools. The right age (16-18) students’ enrolment is 34,245; including 15,746 girls and 18,499 boys. The number of students aged less than 16 is 2,807, while those aged more than 18 years have an enrolment of 18,949. The NER for both female and male students in SSE is 25.98 per cent; for female students, it is 23.52 per cent; while for the male students, it is 28.53 per cent. At this stage, the NER for boys is much higher than that for girls, unlike in ECD, LBE and UBE.

Gross Enrolment Ratio for Secondary Education by Gender from 2010 to 2014 and the NER for 2016 are given in the following tables:

SSE GER SSE- NER

Total MF Female Male Total MF Year Female % Male % % % % % 2010 33.9 30.6 37.4 2011 34.9 32.2 37.7 2012 36.2 33.5 39.1

2013 39.1 36.9 41.1 2014 41.2 39.2 43.2 2015 41.6 40.5 42.6 2016 44.0 43.9 44.1 25.98 23.52 28.53

Table 28 A. SSE GER for the years 2010- 2016 by Table 28 B. SSE NER for the year 2016 by gender gender

Note: The GER in the above table is calculated on the basis of the projected population of the Census 2003, the one based on the 2013 Census will be 1-2% lower, as per the difference in projected population and the actual in 2013 census.

January 2017 37 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

SSE – age 16-18

The population of children aged 16-18 years by region and the enrolment by region and gender are given in the following table:

Region Projected MF Enrolment in Female Male enrolment population of SSE in 2016 enrolment age 16-18 in 2016 Banjul 2,221 5,929 2,782 3,147

Kanifing 27,022 15,755 7,803 7,952

Brikama 49,346 20,267 10,567 9,700

Mansakonko 5,801 1,940 1,019 921

Kerewan 15,766 4,692 2,565 2,127

Kuntaur 6,932 1,648 877 771

Janjanbureh 8,967 3,831 2,083 1,748

Basse 16,990 1,939 933 1,006

Total 133,045 56,001 28,629 27,372

Table 29. Population of age 16-18, enrolment in SSE by gender and region - MoBSE Yearbook

2015-16 and GBoS projection based on 2013 census

Grade/ Projected population Net enrolment Gross Enrolment in Level in this age bracket 16- 2016 18 as per Census 2013

Total Girls Boys Total Girls Boys Total Girls Boys

SSE Grade 10- 133,04 67,87 65,16 56,00 28,62 27,37 34,24 15,74 18,49 12 5 9 6 1 9 2 5 6 9 Age 16-18

Table 30. Population of age group 16-18 and enrolment in grade 10-12 in 2016 by gender – Source: MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16 and GBoS projection based on 2013 census

Table 30 shows the total projected population of children aged 16-18 years, the total enrolment (Gross) in 2016 in SSE, and the right age (net) enrolment in SSE. The enrolment of age 16- 18 in SSE is 25.7 per cent; including 23.2 per cent girls and 28.4 per cent boys. As in LBE, the percentage of boys is much higher than that of girls at the right age (net) enrolment.

January 2017 38 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Of the total 160 SSE schools, 52 (33 per cent) are the government schools, 35 (22 per cent) are grant aided schools, 36 (22 per cent) are private schools and 37 (23 per cent) are madrassahs. Of the total enrolment of 56,001, there are 11,207 (20 per cent), 29,005 (52 per cent), 11,127 (20 per cent) and 4,662 (8 per cent) in Government, grant aided, private schools and madrassahs respectively. It is interesting to note that the number of grant aided schools in the country is the smallest (22 per cent) of all types, but has attracted 29,005 (52 per cent) enrolment. However, the government schools possess a higher percentage of qualified teachers, a higher percentage of female teachers, and a lower STTR. In the government schools the STTR is 1:21, in grant aided schools it is 1:34, in private school 1:20 and in madrassahs, it is 1:17.

MDG and EFA progress

In terms of MDG’s education related goals and the EFA goals, considerable progress has been shown by The Gambia, though a lot still has to be done. The increase in GER and NER, the development of ECD programmes and recognition of Madrassa as an alternative route to education are the efforts in this direction. Despite all these gains, the number of children who are still out of school is still very high, as indicated in the earlier reports. The Gambia Country Status Report 2010 (CSR 2010) estimated that the proportion of children in the basic education age cohort (7-15 years) who were out of school was 31.6 per cent, including a considerable proportion of 29.1 per cent of children who have never attended school. In 2013, a similar study conducted in two regions of The Gambia (the Central River and Upper River Region) gave an alarming number of 50 per cent of children to be out of school. The MDG Status Report 2013 has indicated a good progress on Goal 2, that by 2015 all school age children will be completing the primary education.

Goal 2 has one target and three indicators to measure progress towards the achievement of universal primary education. These indicators are: net enrolment ratio in primary education; proportion of pupils starting grade 1 who reach last grade of primary education; and literacy rate of 15-24-year-olds, women and men. The Gambia is on-track on all targets and therefore on the goal.

January 2017 39 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Summary status of Indicators

Target Indicator 1990 2013 Latest status MDG Target 2.1 Net 46.3% 48% (1991) 80.8% (2015) 100% enrolment ratio (1991) in primary Target 2.A: education Ensure that, by 2015, children 2.2 Proportion of 88.1% 96.6% 100% everywhere, pupils starting (1992) (2006) boys and girls grade 1 who 95.3% alike, will be reach last grade (2010) able to complete of primary a full course of primary 2.3 Literacy rate 48% (1991) 62.9% 70.72% in 72% schooling of 15-24 year (2003) 2013 (source olds, women 69.7% UIS) and men (2013)

Table 31. Indicators and progress - adapted from MoBSE, MICS 2010, GDHS 2013

Quality of Education

The major emphasis of government in the education sector is on the delivery of quality education, which poses significant challenges to the education sector. Hence, improving students’ learning outcomes is a national priority highlighted in the national education policy. The policy supports interventions aimed at capacity strengthening of teacher and education managers. Emphasis is also placed on the continuing professional development of teachers through an effective and efficient e-learning system. Special attention is also given to foundational literacy and numeracy skills. The policy also emphasizes on the use of national languages to enhance early grade literacy. The spirit of partnership to advance the cause of education service delivery is critical in the improvement of quality education, which is manifested in policy implementation.

Assessment and evaluation system

The National Assessment Tests (NAT) for grades 3, 5, and 8 are mandatory exams for all schools, irrespective of ownership and management type. It is institutionalized to inform the education system on pupil’s performance at the respective education levels. While there is no completion exam at the end of the lower basic education level, the Gambia Basic Examination Certificate Exam (GABECE) is a terminal exam which is also used for selecting students into the senior secondary school.

January 2017 40 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

The West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) marks the completion of the SSS and the result of the WASSCE is used for the selection of student for further higher and tertiary education as well as for certification.

Literacy rate in The Gambia

The literacy rate, as reported in a document developed by Index Mundi taken from a source of UNESCO (UIS), has shown a figure of 70.72 per cent for all persons between the ages of 15-24 and 53.19 per cent for all persons of ages 15 and above, in the year 2013. These figures show a considerable improvement over the literacy figures of the year 2000, at 52.56 per cent for the age group 15-24 and 36.82 per cent for the age group 15 and above.

The following table shows the literacy rates for female and male population in the year 2000 and 2013:

Age Year 2000 Year 2013

Female Male Total Female Male Total

15-24 41.39 64.34 52.56 67.37 74.14 70.72

15 and 25.06 48.98 36.82 44.62 62.23 53.19 above

Table 32. Adapted from Index Mundi graphs- figures borrowed from UIS

It is very encouraging to note that the female literacy rate is growing by a higher rate than the male, thus reducing the gender gap in literacy. The female literacy rate during this period for the age group 15-24 rose by 25.98 per cent, whereas that of the male rose only by 13.25 per cent; almost half of the female rate. Similarly, for the age group 15 and above, the female literacy rate rose by 19.56 per cent, while for the male it rose only by 13.25 per cent.

According to the LFS 2012,6 the overall adult literacy rate for persons 15 years and above was 42.1 percent, but it is much higher for males (52.2 percent) than for females (33.2 percent). In terms of residence, the overall adult literacy rate for persons 15 and above in urban and rural areas were 56.1 percent and 27.9 percent respectively. This shows marked urban rural difference in adult literacy rates. ‐

6 Gambia LFS 2012 revised final report, page 35

January 2017 41 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

GER in 2010 and 2015 at LBE

The GER in 2015 is 101.2 per cent for grades 1-6 and the NER is 80.8 per cent, while the GER for upper basic education is 68.3 per cent in 2015. The enrolment of Madrassahs was taken into account while calculating the GER and NER.

According to the MICS 2010 report, the children reaching the last grade of primary school is 95.3 per cent, and the gender parity index of female is 1.05 and the marriages before 18 years of age is 46.5%.

The interest of the population in education can be exhibited by the participation of their children in the pre-school education, primary and secondary education. The GIHS 2010 Part 1 report has recorded 97.8 per cent of 3-6-year old children, 96.2 per cent of 7-12-year old children, 86.7 per cent of 13-15-year olds, and 67.5 per cent of 16-18-year old children. The overall percentage of children’s participation in education between age 3-18 years is 88.3 per cent. This is in fact a good sign of the interest of the population and the encouragement of the government to provide the required facilities to accommodate the growing participation. It is also interesting to note that the difference of participation in rural and urban is also negligible. In urban areas 89 per cent of the children of schoolgoing age of 3-18 years are in school, whereas in rural areas, 87.5 per cent are enrolled.

The population of children aged 3 and above who have never attended school mentioned the following reasons for not attending:

1. Work 2. Too expensive 3. Too far 4. Not useful 5. Married 6. Religious 7. Too young 8. Handicap

In The Gambia, the school age (3-18) population in the year 2013 was 806,362, and 840,780 in 2016.

January 2017 42 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Grade/Level Projected population in the Children not enrolled Enrolment in 2016 year 2016 in school in 2016 Total Girls Boys Total Girls Boys Total Girls Boys ECD age 3-6 223,93 100,34 123,59 58,26 65,32 109,359 114,580 51,094 49,255 (Level 1-4) 9 9 0 5 5 LBE Grade 1-6 315,57 308,72 158,63 150,09 156,612 158,961 6,844 -2,024 8,868 Age 7-12 3 9 6 3 UBE Grade 7-9 145,93 27,06 28,02 73,619 72,311 90,838 46,554 44,284 55,092 Age 13-15 0 5 7 SSE Grade 10-12 133,04 39,25 37,79 67,879 65,166 56,001 28,629 27,372 77,044 Age 16-18 5 0 4 818,48 555,91 284,91 271,00 262,57 122,5 140,0 Grand Total 407,469 411,018 7 7 3 4 0 56 14 Table 33. Adapted from Population Census 2013 projected data and MoBSE Yearbook 2016

These figures are the gross enrolment figures and do not satisfy the requirement of the five dimensions, but may be of interest of the readers.

SSE Grade 10-12 16% ECD age 3-6 (Level 1-4) 27%

UBE Grade 7-9 18%

LBE Grade 1-6 39%

Fig. 8 A. Percent share of school age population (age 3-18)

January 2017 43 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

SSE Grade 10-12 ECD age 3-6 10% (Level 1-4) 18% UBE Grade 7-9 16%

LBE Grade 1-6 56%

Fig. 8B. Percent share of enrolled children in different levels

SSE Grade 10-12 29% ECD age 3-6 (Level 1-4) 47%

UBE Grade 7-9 21% LBE Grade 1-6 3%

Fig. 8C. Percent share of children of different age groups in total out of school children

January 2017 44 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

TVET

A streaming for TVET is available in The Gambia after grade 9, at secondary level. The major objectives of the TVET in the Gambia are to:

 Promote self-employment and help in eradicating poverty;  Promote employability;  Enhance socio-economic development; and  Support life-long learning

The Education Policy 2016-2030 emphasizes on the TVET. Para 4.4.1 says “programmes of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) will be strengthened, expanded and diversified to meet the emerging needs of a growing labour market. Efforts will be made to ensure that the quality and relevance of training and skills development match the demands of the market. There will be increased private sector participation in the provision and financing of training and skills development especially of the rural youth.7” The government is determined to “provide marketable and social skills to enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. Strengthen the institutional and management capacity of the TVET system. Establish a sound financial basis for the long-term development and sustainability of TVET.”8

The government has recognized the significance of TVET’s potential to create self-employable opportunities, thus contributing to socio-economic development. However, TVET suffers from inadequate infrastructure, low numbers of TVET graduates, non-responsive TVET training to the labour market needs, and the perception of TVET as second option to the general education. The government has started planning of a pre-TVET programme from Grade 4, and to formulate a TVET policy and operational plan to focus on Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangements, out of school youth, infrastructure, and teacher training. The policy will further institutionalize the development of a qualification framework and accreditation.

Special Education

In the whole country, for the education of the special needs children, there are three centres; the centre for the blind, the centre for those having hearing difficulties and the centre for those having learning disabilities. All the three centres are located in Kanifing. The children from far off places cannot conveniently benefit from these centres. Currently, the school for the blind accommodates about 50 students, the centre for those with hearing difficulty takes care of about 250 students, and the centre for the persons having learning difficulties takes care of about 100 students.

There is no residential facility available. The students either have to arrange their own pick and drop facilities, or be picked and dropped by the centre’s transport facility covering a radius of 35-40 kilometers from the centre.

7 Education Policy 2016-2030 8 Education policy 2016-2030, Policy objectives xii, xvi &xvii

January 2017 45 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

The majority of teachers at the centres are not adequately trained in their respective areas of special education. The major emphasis of the special education is to enable the students to join the regular classes of general education. Though there is no limit to the age for the students getting admission in the special education centres, mostly young, especially those desirous of getting entry into the mainstream education are admitted. Since the geographical coverage is very limited, there is a need for opening similar centres in other regions to extend the services and coverage to the remote places.

Number of special needs children by levels of education

Disability ECD LBE UBE SSE Total

Vision 261 1,857 835 437 3,390

Hearing 184 1,009 280 142 1,615

Speaking 291 576 208 38 1,113

Physical 241 468 145 59 913

Mental 69 239 25 5 338

Others 86 466 167 99 818

Total 1,132 4,615 1,660 780 8,187

Table 34. Number of special needs children by level of education- adapted from EMIS 2015-16

The existing special education centres cater only for a fraction of special needs children due to a huge number in schools, and may be a considerable number of children who are out of school.

January 2017 46 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Madrassah or Religious school

Madrassahs are generally owned by private individuals getting fees from students, using the conventional school curriculum. English and Arabic languages are usually taught in Madrassahs. Mostly, the Madrassahs are housed in private buildings, but the government has started interventions in the construction of additional rooms, payment of salaries to the trained teachers, provision of furniture and teaching aids, sanitary facilities, water points, and managerial support. This type of support is provided to Madrassahs that fulfill the recognition criteria set by the government. Apart from the regular education of core subjects - Mathematics, Science and SES - religious education like Quran, Hadith, Fiqah, Tafseer are also taught in these Madrassahs.

DARAS or Majlis

According to a rough estimate 8-10% of those who are not in regular schools are admitted in Daras or Majalis to learn Quran or get religious education in learning Ahadees or Tafseer. Each Dara or Majlis is headed by a Religious Teacher called Marabou or Muallim. Depending upon the popularity of Marabou the number of students admitted varies from Dara to Dara. Many Marabous are from the Gambia but some are from Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Mali or Niger. Daras are mainly owned by Marabous and housed either in Masjid or homes. In most Daras the school subjects like English, Mathematics, Science or Social Studies are not taught. However some are now introducing these subjects as part of a government cash transfer pilot school.

Daras’ Marabous endeavor to generate the funds required for the operational activities. In cities the Marabous usually persuade the foreign Muslim visitors to visit their Daras, they brief them on the activities, the number of children they enroll and the type of service they provide to the area and finally ask for funding. Some visitors provide considerable funding directly to the Marabous. There is no system of registration, monitoring & evaluation or auditing of funding of Daras. As a private entity the Dara is run by the Marabou. Besides getting funds from individuals, contribution from the parents of the children admitted in Daras is received and the children may work for Marabous in the Cashew or other agriculture farms as unpaid workers.

January 2017 47 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Chapter 2

An Overview of the Global OOSCI

The Global Initiative for Out of School Children has been jointly launched by UNICEF and UNESCO Institute of Statistics since 2010 to accelerate the efforts of universal primary education by 2015 to achieve EFA goal and MDG 2 agenda. The national studies aim to know the number of children who are out of school and identify the barriers that keep the children out of school or compel them to be out before completing a terminal part of basic education. The OOSCI studies will help the governments to bring about changes in policy and formulate strategies to bring the out-of-school-children into school. Similar studies have been undertaken in several countries in the various continents.

The findings of this research study aimed at answering the following questions:

 Is The Gambia on the threshold of achieving universal enrolment of both male and female children?

 How many of the school-age children are out of school?

 What are the possible reasons for their being out of school?

 What is the probability of their dropping out early or staying in schools till completion of secondary or senior secondary education?

 How can the out of school children be brought to schools?

The study will inform the policy makers to base the future policies, strategies and reforms in education on the findings.

The five dimensions of exclusion

Five Dimensions of Exclusion (5DE)

OOSCI focuses on the following five Dimensions of Exclusion; each dimension representing a distinct group of children:

Dimension 1 (DE 1) includes children of pre-primary school age who are neither in pre- primary nor in primary school. This group of children may not be adequately prepared for primary education, placing them at risk of not entering into primary education, entering late or withdrawing after their initial participation. Irrespective of the duration of the pre-primary schooling programme, the UIS has recommended only considering one year of pre-primary education programme prior to primary education for the purpose of standardization of data for all countries.

Since the primary entrance age in The Gambia is 7 years, DE 1 will include children of age 6 years who are not in pre-primary or primary education.

January 2017 48 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Dimension 2 (DE 2) represents children of primary age who are not in primary, lower secondary or upper secondary education.

Dimension 3 (DE 3) represents children of lower secondary age who are neither in primary nor in secondary education.

Dimension 4 (DE 4) represents children in primary school who are at risk of dropping out.

Dimension 5 (DE 5) represents children in lower secondary school who are at risk of dropping out.

The 5DE model represents an innovative approach providing a broader view of exclusion from education. The data on out of school children of pre-primary, lower basic education and upper basic education school age will help in effectively linking the provision of education to children with different developmental needs at different stages of life. The national OOSCI study examines the issue of out-of-school children.

The Global Out-Of-School Children Initiative Operational Manual provides guidance for all the users to standardize the methodology for carrying out the study and analyzing the data. The manual provides a clear and consistent approach to study the problem of out of school children and those at risk of dropping out from school. The standardized efforts will focus mainly on the following: a) Who and where the excluded children are; b) The barriers and causes of exclusion; c) Policies and strategies to remove these barriers.

At the national level the data is available on out of school children from EMIS and/or household surveys but such data lacks the thorough analysis and cross checking with other sources of information. The manual therefore helps in standardizing the approach at the global level to facilitate the comparison at regional or national levels.

The following table shows the projected population in the year 2016 of various school age brackets, number of children enrolled in different levels and the number of children not enrolled at the national level.

January 2017 49 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Age/ Grade Projected Female Male Enrolled Female Male Number Female Male populatio in school of n for the in 2016 children year 2016 at not different enrolled levels

3-6 Years/ 223,939 109,359 114,580 88,523 45,415 43,108 135,416 63,944 71,472 ECD Level 1-4

6 Years/ 55,332 27,121 28,211 6,094 3,104 2,990 49,238 24,017 25,221 ECD level 4 7-12 years/ LBE Grade 315,573 156,612 158,961 247,080 118,791 128,289 68,493 37,821 30,672 1-6

13-15 years/ UBE Grade 145,930 73,619 72,311 53,589 24,933 28,656 92,341 48,686 43,655 7-9 16-18 years/ SSE Grade 133,045 67,879 65,166 34,245 18,499 15,746 98,800 49,380 49,420 10-12

Total 818,487 407,469 411,018 423,437 207,638 215,799 395,050 199,831 195,219

Table 35: Projected population of different age brackets, number of enrolled indifferent levels and number of children not enrolled. Source: MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16 and GBoS projection based on 2013 census.

The above table shows that the total physically out of school children in the Gambia is 395,050; including 199,831 female and 195,219 male children. In general 51.7% of children are in schools and 48.3% of children are out of school children. This number does not account for mortality or emigration or immigration of population and the corresponding share for the school-age group. The above figures though not exactly satisfying the requirement of OOSCI but may be of great interest to the national educationists to prepare strategies on focusing the areas of intervention for future educational development programmes. The educational planners are especially interested to know these figures; especially the UBE or SSE age groups physically not in schools, to plan the adult literacy programmes or establishing coaching centres or planning streaming to vocational and technical areas.

At the ECD levels, it is very encouraging to note that many children of age 3-6 are enrolled in ECD centres at different levels. The ratio of this age group enrolled in ECD is far better than that in many other developing countries. In the following table the enrolment figure for ECD is different from the one recorded in the above table because it also includes the enrolment of children having ages less than 3 years and those having more than 6 years whereas in the above table the figure recorded is for the children having ages 3-6.

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Grade/Level Population in the year 2016 Enrolment in 2016

Total Girls Boys Total Girls Boys

ECD age 3-6 (Level 1- 223,939 109,359 114,580 100,349 51,094 49,255 4) Level 1 56,622 27,634 28,988 46,759 23,786 22,973 Level 2 56,055 27,288 28,767 28,832 14,588 14,244

Level 3 55,930 27,316 28,614 18,664 9,616 9,048 Level 4 55,332 27,121 28,211 6,094 3,104 2,990

Table 36: Projected population of ECD age children and number enrolled – Source: MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16 and GBoS projection based on 2013 census

Dimension 1 (Pre-primary school-age children, out of school)

Dimension 1 represents children of pre-primary school age who are neither in pre-primary nor in primary school. In The Gambia, age 3-6 years is the pre-primary school age and the official age for admission in Grade 1 of the primary school is age 7. According to the definition of DI, only those children of age 6 (that is, only one year before the actual official age of entry into primary education) will be considered, no matter what is the actual range of pre-primary school age in a country.

In the Gambia the ECD has certain unique features; like the dominant role of private sector in provision of ECD services and the interest of the population in ECD and the confidence of the parents in enrolling their children in these centres. The Education Policy 2016-2030 lays emphasis on ECD and has determined to raise the GER of ECD to 75% by 2030.

Currently there are 1,141 ECD Centres, more than half possess permanent structures. The number of children enrolled in these Centres is 100,349 including 51,094 female and 49,255 male. The number of teachers in these centres is 3,072; including 1,614 female and 1,458 male teachers. The teacher student ratio in ECD classes is 1:33. It is encouraging to have such a large number of ECD centres at the national level compared to 958 LBE schools, 390 UBE schools and 160 SSE schools.

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Age 3-6 population and ECD Enrolment

Year Total population in age group 3- 3-6 year old enrolled in ECD Physically 3-6 year old out 6 as per Census 2013 and the classes in Public, private of school children projected population in 2016 schools and madrassahs in 2016 + 6 year enrolled in primary

Total Girls Boys Total Girls Boys Total Girls Boys 2013 219,714 111,519 108,196 87,333 44,527 42,806 132,381 66,99 65,390 2

2016 223,939 109,359 114,580 111,651 56,582 55,069 112,288 52,77 59,511 7 Table 37. ECD age children population and enrolment by gender in 2013 and 2016.

Table 37 shows the total population of age 3-6 in the year 2013 and the projected population in the year 2016, the enrolment in 2013 and 2016 in ECD centres and also of the 6 year old children in primary schools. So based on the available data the physically out of school children was calculated. The total number of physically out of school children in the year 2013 was 132,381 and in the year 2016 it was reduced to 112,288.

Out of school children under Dimension 1

In the year 2013 only 40% of the children of age 3-6 were enrolled in ECD centres and 60% remained out of school. In 2016 the enrolment rate increased to 49.8% and the out of school children rate was reduced to 50.2%. The GER at ECD level rose from 36.5% in 2013 to 45.8% in 2016.

The pre-primary education in The Gambia is spread over a period of 3-4 years; the NER for the final year (Level 4) of ECD is not available so the exact number of six years old children in Level 4 is not known. For the sake of standardization of calculations as per UIS UNESCO requirements the total enrolment in level 4 of ECD class will be assumed to be 6 year old. As this is the last year of ECD class preparing children for admission to Grade 1 of the LBE acquiring age 7. The total enrolment in level 4 of ECD classes at national level is 6,094; including 3,104 girls and 2,990 boys. This enrolment is in fact a fraction (6%) of the total enrolment in ECD classes but it is 9.47% of the population of age 6 enrolled in level 4 of ECD.

January 2017 52 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

In fact there may be children of age 6 admitted to different lower levels from 1-3 but these children may spend some more years in ECD classes so according to the definition of OOSC D 1 they are out of school children. But again this number is not the final figure, there may be some children of age 6 who are not in pre-primary but are in primary schools. The primary schools data reveal that there are children less than the official age 7 years admitted. We may assume this to be 6 years and thus subtract it from the total number of OOSC to find out the exact number falling under Dimension 1. In the year 2016, in LBE schools there are 11,302 children admitted having less than 7 years age (we assume it to be 6 years), this number will be subtracted from the figure 60,329 and the final figure as per Dimension 1 is 37,936; including 18,529 female and 19,407 male children.

The ECD enrolment by age and by gender is given in the following table:

ECD students Total Female Male Total Female Male Total Percentag age populati populati populati female enrolle enrolle OOSC e of on on on and male d d OOSC enrolled

3 years 56,622 27,634 28,988 14,547 7,487 7,060 42,075 74.31

4 year 56,055 27,288 28,767 23,909 12,317 11,592 32,146 57.35

5 years 55,930 27,316 28,614 27,124 13,849 13,275 28,806 51.50

6 years 55,332 27,121 28,211 22,943 11,762 11,181 32,389 58.54

Total age 3-6 223,939 109,359 114,580 88,523 45,415 43,108 135,416 60.47

Age more than 9,494 4,709 4,785 7 year

2 years or less 2,332 970 1,362

Grand total 100,349 51,094 49,255 Table 38. Showing enrolled children of different ages in ECD centres and the number and percentage of OOSC of age 3-6 (Source: MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16 and GBoS 2013 Census projection

Dimension 1 has somewhat different criteria for exclusion. The following table shows the total number of age 6 children at national level, and the number enrolled in ECD and LBE schools. The rest are considered to be out of school. The number of OOSC D1 children under Dimension 1 is 37,936, which is 68.56% of the population of age 6 (55,332).

January 2017 53 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Number of OOSC under D1 Item Total Percent Female Percent Male Percent Population of age 6 55,332 100 27,121 49.02 28,211 50.98 6 years old enrolled 6,094 11.01 of the 3,104 50.93 of 2,990 49.07 of in ECD level 4 population enrolled enrolled in ECD of age 6 in ECD Less than 7 years old 11,302 20.42 % of 5,488 48.55 of 5,814 51.45 of the enrolled in primary the the enrolled in LBE (presumed to be 6 yr. population enrolled old) of age 6 in LBE OOSC 37,936 68.56 of the 18,529 48.84 of 19,407 51.16 of the Dimension 1 population total total OOSC of age 6 OOSC under Dimension 1 Table 39. Showing the number of OOSC under D1 at national level and the percentages

At the regional/ LGA level the Dimension 1 figures are shown in the following table.

Region/ LGAs Population 6 year old 6 year old Total 6 6 year old Percentage of age 6 enrolled in enrolled In year old children who of 6 year old MF ECD level LBE enrolled in are not in children out 4 school ECD and school of school LBE Banjul 924 153 167 320 604 67.37 Kanifing 11,238 1,829 3,177 5,006 6,232 55.45 Brikama 20,523 3,461 3,192 6,653 13,870 67.58 Mansakonko 2,412 53 804 857 1,555 64.47 Kerewan 6,557 203 1,630 1,833 4,724 72.04 Kuntaur 2,883 15 510 525 2,358 81.79 Janjanbureh 3,729 62 728 790 2,939 78.81 Basse 7,066 318 1,094 1,412 5,654 80.02

Total 55,332 6,094 11,302 17,396 37,936 68.56 Girls 27,121 3,104 5,488 8,592 68.32 18,529 Boys 28,211 2,990 5,814 8,804 19,407 68.79 Table 40. Population of age 6, enrolled in ECD and LBE and the number of 6 year old not in school by region (Sources: MoBSE Yearbook 2016, GBoS projection of population data based on Census 2013)

January 2017 54 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Percentage of 6 year old children out of school by LGA

90 81.79 78.81 80.02 80 72.04 67.37 67.58 70 64.47 60 55.45 50 40 30 20 10 0 Banjul Kanifing Brikama Mansakonko Kerewan Kuntaur Janjanbureh Basse

Percentage of 6 year old children out of school

Figure 9. Showing percentage of 6 year old children not in school by LGA

Dimension 1 calculations

Pre-primary school age children not in school

To find: Process Calculations Result 1. The percentage of Percent of children of pre-primary age 6,094+ 11,302= 31.439% pre-primary age who are in pre-primary or primary 17,396 children in school education= No. of children of pre-primary Divided age who are enrolled in pre-primary or 55,332x 100 primary education DIVIDED by No. of children of pre-primary age X 100 1. The percentage of Out of school rate for children of pre- 100% -31.439% = 68.561% pre-primary age primary age= 100% MINUS Percent of children not in school children of pre-primary age who are in pre-primary or primary education 2. No. of children not in No. of OOSC of pre-primary age = Out of 68.561X55,332over 37,936 school of preschool rate of pre-primary age 100 primary age MULTIPLIED BY No. of children of pre- primary age over 100 Table 41. Formula for calculating D1

Under OOSC Dimension 1, there are 37,936 (68.56%) children; including 18,529 girls and 19,407 boys.

The above figure seems to be alarming but in fact the actual number of physically out of school children of age 6 is far less than the given number. There are many children of this age who are in school but could not be added to the figure because they were not in the final level of ECD. Since the criteria set for the calculation of D1 allowed only including the figures of enrolment of the last grade (level) of ECD, therefore the results and the percentage of OOSC under this Dimension appeared to be on the higher side.

January 2017 55 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

The following table, though not satisfying the D1 requirements, shows the actual figure of age 6 who are out of school. This figure is considerably lower because it includes the children of age 6 enrolled in other levels of ECD.

Region/ LGAs Population 6 year old 6 year old Total 6 year 6 year old Percentage of of age 6 enrolled enrolled In old enrolled children 6 year old MF in ECD LBE in ECD and who are children out of school LBE not in school school

Banjul 924 373 167 540 384 41.56

Kanifing 11,238 4,496 3,177 7,673 3,565 31.72

Brikama 20,523 9,754 3,192 12,946 7,577 36.92

Mansakonko 2,412 1,101 804 1,905 507 21.02

Kerewan 6,557 2,241 1,630 3,871 2,686 40.96

Kuntaur 2,883 671 510 1,181 1,702 59.04

Janjanbureh 3,729 1,211 728 1,939 1,790 48.00

Basse 7,066 3,096 1,094 4,190 2,876 40.70

Total 55,332 22,943 11,302 34,245 21,087 38.11

Girls 27,121 11,762 5,488 17,250 9,871 36.40

Boys 28,211 11,181 5,814 16,995 11,216 39.76

Note: The exact age of those less than 7 years enrolled in LBE are presumed to be 6 year old. Table 42. Showing 6 year old children who are in ECD added to the 6 year old in LBE by region.

The number of pre-primary age (6 years old) out of school children is 21,087; this is 38.11% of 6 years old children. The percentage of female children out of school is 36.40 % compared to 39.76% for male. At the regional level Kuntaur and Janjanbureh have 59.04 % and 48% out of school children respectively. The remaining six regions/LGAs have percentage of OOSC ranging from 21.02% to 41.56%.

DIMENSION 2

Dimension 2 represents children of primary age who are not in primary (LBE, UBE) or secondary education (SSE).

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Grade/level/age Number Percentage

Total Girls Boys Total Girls Boys

Projected population of age 7-12 in 315,573 156,612 158,961 100 100 100 the year 2016 (based on Census 2013)

Age 7-12 enrolled in LBE 247,080 128,746 118,334 78.29 82.21 74.44

Age 7-12 enrolled in UBE/SSE 3,943 1,743 2,200 1.25 1.12 1.38

Total enrolment in LBE, UBE & SSE 251,023 130,489 120,534 79.54 83.32 75.83

7-12 years population OOSC 64,550 26,123 38,427 20.45 16.68 24.17 Table 43: Showing projected population of age 7-12, enrolment of age 7-12 in LBE and UBE in 2016, (Adapted from GBoS projected data and MoBSE 2016 yearbook.

The number of OOSC under Dimension 2 is 64,550; including 26,123 girls and 38,427 boys of age 7-12 not enrolled in LBE and UBE or SSE.

Methodology for calculating Dimension 2

The following methodology was used for calculation of D 2.

To find out: Process Calculation Result

Primary NER Number of children of primary 247,080/315,573x 100 78.296% school age enrolled in primary education Divided by Number of children of primary school age x 100

Primary ANER Number of children of primary 247,080 + 3943 = 79.545% school age enrolled in primary or 251,023/ 315,573x 100 secondary education Divided by Number of children of primary school age x100

Out of school rate Out of school rate for children of 100% - 79.545% 20.455% for children of primary school age= 100%- primary school age Primary ANER

Number of out of Out of school rate for children of 20.455% x 315,573/100 64,550 school children of primary school age Multiplied by primary school age Number of children of primary school age over 100 Table 44. Showing formula for calculating D2

January 2017 57 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

The breakdown of figure 64,550 under D2 by region and gender is given in the following table.

Region Population 7-12 year 7-12 year Total 7-12 7-12 year Percentage of of age 7- old old year old old 7-12 year old 12 MF enrolled in enrolled enrolled in children children out of LBE In UBE or LBE, UBE who are school SSE or SSE not in school

Banjul 5,271 4,139 72 4,211 1,060 20.11

Kanifing 64,092 52,222 1,503 53,725 10,367 16.17

Brikama 117,046 93,760 1,234 94,994 22,052 18.84

Mansakonko 13,759 11,858 204 12,062 1,697 12.33

Kerewan 37,395 29,291 282 29,573 7,822 29.92

Kuntaur 16,442 9,449 135 9,584 6,858 41.71

Janjanbureh 21,269 15,505 262 15,767 5,502 25.87

Basse 40,299 30,856 251 31,107 9,192 22.81

Total 315,573 247,080 3,943 251,023 64,550 20.45

Girls 156,612 128,746 1,743 130,489 26,123 16.68

Boys 158,961 118,334 2,200 120,534 38,427 24.17 Table 45. Showing population of age 7-12, enrolment in LBE, UBE and OOSC by region and by gender - MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16 and GBoS projection based on 2013 census

It is interesting to note that Mansakonko LGA has the lowest rate of 12.33 % of OOSC, even lower than Kanifing (16.17%), Brikama (18.84%) and Banjul City Council (20.11 %). Brikama LGA has the largest population but still the rate of OOSC is 18.84 % better than Banjul City Council, which has the OOSC rate of 20.11 %. The other four LGAs have a percentage of OOSC ranging from 22.81% to 41.71%. Kuntaur region has the highest percentage 41.71% of OOSC. Next is Kerewan with 29.92%, then Janjanbureh with 25.87% and Basse with 22.81%. The boys have a much higher percentage of OOSC (24.17 %) than that of girls (16.68 %).

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Dimension 3

Dimension 3 represents children and adolescents of lower secondary age who are not in primary or secondary education.

Methodology for calculating Dimension 3

For the calculation of D3, the age bracket 13-15 was considered. The total projected population for the year 2016 of this age bracket as per the 2013 population census is 145,930; including 73,619 female and 72,311 male children. Out of this number 53,589: including 26,178 female and 27,411 male children are enrolled in UBE grades 7-9. Of the same age bracket those enrolled in LBE are 50,347; including 25,814 female and 24,533 male children. The number of those enrolled in Senior Secondary Education Schools within the same age bracket is 2,807; including 1,298 female and 1,509 male children. The total number of children of age 13-15 enrolled in UBE, LBE and SSE is 106,743; including 53,290 female and 53,453 male children. The number of children of this age bracket not enrolled in UBE, LBE and SSE is therefore 39,187 (22.12%); including 20,329 female and 18,858 male children.

The following table shows the population and the enrolment of the age bracket 13-15.

D3 Projected Enrolle Enrolled Enrolled Total Dimension OOSC calculation populatio d in in LBE in SSE 13-15 3 Total of Percent of s n of age UBE years age age 13-15 13-15 in enrolled bracket population 2016 in LBE, 13-15 not UBE enrolled in and LBE, UBE SSE or SSE Total 145,930 53,589 50,347 2,807 106,743 39,187 26.85

Female 73,619 26,178 25,814 1,298 53,290 20,329 27.61

Male 72,311 27,411 24,533 1,509 53,453 18,858 26.08

Table 46. Showing population of age 13-15 and the number enrolled in LBE, UBE and SSE by gender and number of OOSC – Source: MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16 and GBoS projection based on 2013 census

For calculation of the NER for UBE and ANER for UBE the following process was followed. The number of children out of school under this dimension is 39,187; including 20,329 female and 18,858 male children.

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To find out Process Calculation Result Upper Basic Education Number of children of UBE school 53,589/ 145,930x 36.722% NER age enrolled in UBE Divided by 100 Number of children of UBE age x 100

UBE ANER Number of children of UBE school 53,589 + 2,807 = 38.645% age enrolled in UBE or SSE education 56,396/ 145,930x Divided by Number of children of 100 UBE school age x 100

Out of school rate for = 100% - UBE ANER - 100% - 38.645% - 26.855% children of UBE school 34.500% Percentage of children of UBE school age age enrolled in LBE

Number of out of = Out of school rate of children of UBE 26.855x 145,930/ 39,187 school children of UBE school age x Number of children of 100 school age UBE school age Table 47. Showing step by step calculation of D 3

Dimension 3 by Administrative Region/LGAs

A breakdown of the above figures by region is given in the following table.

Region/LGA Population 13-15 13-15 13-15 Total 13-15 Percentage of of age 13- year old year old year old 13-15 year old 13- 15 year old 15 MF enrolled enrolled enrolled year old children children out of in UBE in LBE in SSE enrolled who are school in UBE, not in LBE or school SSE Banjul 2,438 1,153 596 613 2,362 76 3.11

Kanifing 29,638 15,929 10,028 970 26,927 2,711 9.15

Brikama 54,125 21,009 20,445 540 41,994 12,131 22.41

Mansakonko 6,363 2,411 2,382 239 5,032 1,331 20.91

Kerewan 17,293 5,470 5,690 155 11,315 5,978 34.56

Kuntaur 7,602 1,351 1,652 100 3,103 4,499 59.18

Janjanbureh 9,836 2,657 2,531 33 5,221 4,615 46.92

Basse 18,635 3,609 7,023 157 10,789 7,846 42.10

Total 145,930 53,589 50,347 2,807 106,743 39,187 26.85

Girls 73,619 26,178 25,814 1,298 53,290 20,329 27.61

Boys 72,311 27,411 24,533 1,509 53,453 18,858 26.08 Table 48. Showing number of D3 by region. Source: MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16 and GBoS projection based on 2013 census

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The total number of out of school children in this age bracket is 39,187 including 20,329 female and 18,858 male children. The percentage of boys out of school in Dimension 3 (26.08%) is lower than that of girls (27.61%). Kuntaur LGA has the highest percentage (59.18%) of children out of school. Janjanbureh is the next region having 46.92% children out of school followed by Basse (42.10%), Kerewan (34.56%), Brikama (22.41 %) and Mansakonko (20.91%). Banjul City Council has 3.11% while Kanifing has 9.15% of out of school children under Dimension 3.

DIMENSION 4

D4 represents children in primary school but at risk of dropping out. To find out survival rate to the final grade of LBE, UBE and the percentage of children who dropped out before the final grade of LBE and UBE the following calculation were made.

To find out Process

Survival rate to final Number of children who entered grade 1 of LBE and reached the final grade of primary grade Divided by education LBE Number of children who entered grade 1 of LBE

Survival rate of final Number of children who entered Grade 7 (UBE) and reached Grade 9 grade of UBE Divided by Number of children who entered grade 7of UBE

Percentage of children Number of children in primary education who dropped out before last grade of LBE who dropped Divided by Number of children in primary education Minus Number of out before last grade children in last grade of primary education

Percentage of children Number of children in UBE who dropped out before last grade Divided by in UBE who dropped Number of children in UBE Minus Number of children in last grade of UBE out before last grade Table 49. Calculation of D4 and D5

Methodology for calculating D4

The data on enrolment and repeaters by grade and by gender at the LBE level are available in MoBSE yearbooks, so the flow data describing the movement of pupils between two consecutive years under certain assumptions can be worked out. The flow data will be useful for the planners and decision makers to plan for future requirements in the sector. The approach is based on the assumption that all new entrants start school in Grade 1; that the only in-flows to grades other than Grade 1 are promotees and repeaters, and that at the end of the school year, pupils may be promoted to the following grade, may repeat the same grade or may drop out. Or the entrants may graduate if this is the final grade of the education cycle.

In such cases the data available on repeaters can help in deriving the two other flows of promotees and dropouts. However for the final grade the data on number of graduates passing out has to be collected.

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Based on the above facts and assumptions the dropout rates were calculated for the different grades. The following table shows enrolment in the past three years by gender and by grade.

Enrolment by grade and by gender in 2014- 2016 in LBE

Year Sex Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6

MF 64,988 53,154 45,195 41,534 36,276 33,792

2013-14 M 32,011 26,064 22,110 20,434 17,638 16,613

F 32,977 27,090 23,085 21,100 18,638 17,179

MF 68,142 58,450 49,072 44,329 38,717 34,793

2014-15 M 33,431 28,325 23,880 21,555 19,068 16,924

F 34,711 30,125 25,192 22,774 19,649 17,869

MF 68,421 60,861 54,992 47,689 40,367 36,399

2015-16 M 33,584 29,625 26,473 23,222 19,480 17,709

F 34,837 31236 28,519 24,467 20,887 18,690 Table 50. Showing enrolment by grade and gender from 2014 to 2016 adapted from MoBSE Yearbooks 2014, 2015 and 2016

The following table shows the number of repeaters from Grade 1-6 in the years 2014, 2015 and 2016 by gender. The enrolment figures mentioned above includes the number of repeaters mentioned in the following table.

Repeaters by grade and by gender in 2014- 2016 in LBE Year Repeater Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6 s MF 3,276 2,238 1,561 1,266 894 968 2013-14 M 1,626 1,117 795 640 469 510 F 1,650 1,121 766 626 425 458 MF 4,777 4,199 2,385 2,086 1,088 994 2014-15 M 2,465 2,150 1,217 1,074 571 507 F 2,312 2,049 1,168 1,012 531 487 MF 5,334 4,015 2,566 2,025 1,231 867 2015-16 M 2,806 2,073 1,334 1,074 658 433 F 2,528 1,942 1,232 951 573 434 Table 51. Showing number of repeaters by grade and gender from 2014 to 2016 adapted from MoBSE Yearbooks 2014, 2015 and 2016

The data of the above two tables on enrolment and repeaters of LBE children for the three consecutive years; 2014, 2015 and 2016 was used as inputs in the software developed by UIS to find out promotion, repetition, survival rates and the number of children at risk of dropping out. The results of the calculations are produced below in the different tables.

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Promotion rates Year Gender Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 2014 MF 83.48% 87.83% 93.47% 90.60% 93.17% M 81.77% 86.95% 92.63% 90.58% 93.09% F 85.14% 88.68% 94.27% 90.61% 93.26% 2015 MF 83.42% 89.69% 93.06% 88.29% 91.77% M 82.41% 88.75% 92.75% 87.32% 90.61% F 84.39% 90.58% 93.35% 89.20% 92.91% Table 52. Showing promotion rate by grade and by gender in LBE schools in the years 2014 and 2015

Repetition rates Year Gender Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6 2014 MF 7.35% 7.90% 5.28% 5.02% 3.00% 2.94% M 7.70% 8.25% 5.50% 5.26% 3.16% 3.05% F 7.01% 7.56% 5.06% 4.80% 2.85% 2.83% 2015 MF 7.83% 6.87% 5.23% 4.57% 3.18% 2.49% M 8.39% 7.32% 5.59% 4.98% 3.45% 2.56% F 7.28% 6.45% 4.89% 4.18% 2.92% 2.43% Table 53. Showing repetition rates in LBE schools by grade and by gender in the years 2014 and 2015

Survival rate by grade Year Gender Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 2014 MF 90.10% 95.37% 98.68% 95.39% 96.05% M 88.59% 94.77% 98.03% 95.60% 96.12% F 91.56% 95.94% 99.29% 95.17% 96.00% 2015 MF 90.51% 96.31% 98.19% 92.51% 94.79% M 89.97% 95.76% 98.23% 91.90% 93.85% F 91.02% 96.82% 98.15% 93.09% 95.70% Table 54. Showing survival rate by gender and by grade in LBE schools in the years 2014 and 2015

Survival rate to the last grade Year Gender Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 2014 MF 77.69% 86.22% 90.41% 91.62% 96.05% M 75.63% 85.37% 90.09% 91.90% 96.12% F 79.68% 87.03% 90.71% 91.36% 96.00% 2015 MF 75.05% 82.92% 86.10% 87.69% 94.79% M 72.99% 81.13% 84.73% 86.25% 93.85% F 77.05% 84.65% 87.43% 89.08% 95.70% Table 55. Showing survival to the last grade in the year 2014 and 2015

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Dropout rate before the last grade Year Gender Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 2014 MF 22.31% 13.78% 9.59% 8.38% 3.95% M 24.37% 14.63% 9.91% 8.10% 3.88% F 20.32% 12.97% 9.29% 8.64% 4.00% 2015 MF 24.95% 17.08% 13.90% 12.31% 5.21% M 27.01% 18.87% 15.27% 13.75% 6.15% F 22.95% 15.35% 12.57% 10.92% 4.30% Table 56.Showing dropout rate by grade and by gender in the years 2014 and 2015

Number of dropout before the last grade

Number of expected dropouts before the last grade Year Gender Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Total 2014 MF 14,501 7,324 4,334 3,479 1,432 31.070 M 7,801 3,811 2,190 1,656 686 16,144 F 6,700 3,513 2,144 1,823 746 14,926 2015 MF 17,000 9,981 6,820 5,457 2,018 41,276 M 9,035 5,358 3,654 2,971 1,173 22,191 F 7,965 4,623 3,166 2,486 845 19,085 Table 57. Showing the number of dropouts by gender and by grade in the years 2014 and 2015

The number of children likely to be dropped out from the LBE schools is 41,276; including 22,191 male and 19,085 female children. The figure for D 4 is 41,276.

DIMENSION 5

The total enrolment in Upper Basic Education (or lower secondary education) by year and by gender may be found in the following table. This input together with the number of repeaters was used to find out the number of drop outs and the rate of dropout. This number can be taken as the number of children likely to be dropped out from the system.

Methodology for calculating D5

As for the calculation of D4, the software provided by UIS was used. The inputs required for the calculation was the enrolment and repeaters by grade for the three consecutive years; 2014, 2015 and 2016, obtained from the MoBSE yearbooks. The following inputs were used as enrolment by grade in the software provided by UIS.

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Enrolment in Grades 7-9 in UBE schools by year and gender

Year Gender Grade 7 Grade 8 Grade 9 Total 2014 MF 30,535 28,584 28,272 87,391 M 14,924 14,185 14,136 43,243 F 15,611 14,399 14,136 44,146 2015 MF 31,747 29,288 29141 90,176 M 15,544 14,437 14,563 44,559 F 16,203 14,851 14,578 45,617 2016 MF 32,811 30,009 28,018 90,838 M 15,933 14,656 13,695 44,284 F 16,878 15,353 14,323 46,554 Table 58. Showing the enrolment of UBE schools by grade, gender and year

The following number of repeaters was used as inputs to find out the number of dropouts and the dropout rate for UBE. These figures have been obtained from MoBSE year books of 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Number of repeaters by year, gender and grade in UBE

Year Gender Grade 7 Grade 8 Grade 9 Total 2014 MF 709 999 1,265 2,973 M 334 486 647 1,467 F 375 513 618 1,506 2015 MF 1,135 1,684 1,263 4,082 M 504 759 673 1,936 F 631 925 590 2,146 2016 MF 892 972 927 2,791 M 437 467 501 1,405 F 455 505 426 1,386 Table 59. Showing the number of repeaters by grade, gender and year at UBE level

Using the above data as inputs to the software provided by UIS the following tables were obtained as output.

Promotion rates Repetition rates Year Gender Grade 7 Grade 8 Grade 7 Grade 8 Grade 9 MF 90.40% 97.53% 3.72% 5.89% 4.47% 2014 M 91.65% 98.03% 3.38% 5.35% 4.76% F 89.21% 97.15% 4.04% 6.42% 4.17% MF 91.46% 92.50% 2.81% 3.32% 3.18% 2015 M 91.28% 91.39% 2.81% 3.23% 3.44% F 91.53% 93.58% 2.81% 3.40% 2.92% Table 60. Showing promotion rates and repetition rates at UBE level

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ear Gender Survival rate Dropout rate before Number of dropouts the last grade Grade 7 Grade 8 Grade 7 Grade Grad Grade 8 Total 8 e 7 number of dropout MF 93.89% 99.85% 6.25% 0.15% 1,909 43 1,952 2014 M 94.85% 99.80% 5.33% 0.20% 811 43 854 F 92.96% 100.00% 7.04% 0.00% 1,098 0 1,098 MF 1,26 94.11% 95.67% 9.96% 4.33% 3,163 4,430 7 2015 M 93.92% 94.45% 11.29% 5.55% 1,759 802 2,561 F 94.17% 96.87% 8.78% 3.13% 1,404 465 1,869 Table 61. Showing survival rate, dropout rate before the last grade and number of dropouts by year, gender and grade at UBE level

The final figure for D 5 is 4,430 including 2,561 male and 1,869 female children.

The total number of OOSC as per the five dimensions is given in the following table:

Dimension # Number of OOSC male Number of OOSC Number of OOSC male & female female Dimension 1 37,936 18,529 19,407 Dimension 2 64,550 26,123 38,427 Dimension 3 39,187 20,329 18,858 Dimension 4 41,276 19,085 22,191 Dimension 5 4,430 1,869 2,561 Total 187,379 85,935 101,444 Table 62. Dimension 1-5 with total number of OOSC, male and female OOSC

Fig. 10. Number of OOSC

4,430

41,276 37,936

39,187 64,550

Dimension 1 Dimension 2 Dimension 3 Dimension 4 Dimension 5

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Chapter 3

Barriers and policies

To find out the barriers for the children to get education and the reasons for not continuing education, FGDs were held across the country with the parents, community members, teachers, out of school children, students of schools, members of regional technical advisory committee, management committee and members’ of mothers’ club. The responses of different FGDs to the question regarding the reasons why some parents would not send their children to school or madrassah are given in the following diagram. The responses are listed in the order they mentioned showing the order of importance of these factors to them.

Teachers: No interest, Financial reason, No benefit seen, Family work, Inherited work, Disability, Distance to school, Adopted versus biological Management Committee and children, Low performance, Cultural beliefs mothers: Needed in farms or School Children: Wrong homes, Some Non Gambians don’t perception of western have birth certificate, Expensive, Low quality, No employment education, opportunity, Past experience with Financial reasons, older children not good, Ignorance Ignorance, Parents not hopeful of their children Adopted Vs Biological, to complete Domestic work, Ineffective school management, teachers not dedicated Reasons why Fear of pregnancy, Distance No appropriate transportation some parents would not send their children to school or Out of school children: Regional Technical Distance to school, Madrassah Advisory Committee: Preference of type of school Parents’ illiteracy, Financial based on parent’s reasons, experience, Cost of Domestic and farm work education, Negative Negative perception, perception about Single parents, conventional school, Early marriage, Migration-backway Community Members and Health, Disability Parents: Ignorance, Carelessness Financial reasons, Distance Adopted children, No interest of children, Children used as source of money earning, Domestic work

Figure 11. Diagram showing the reasons why some parents would not send their children to school or Madrassah

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In response to another question on finding the reasons for the children not completing education or dropping out from school at an early stage the following responses were received from the different FGDs.

Teachers:Cost, failure, marriage, pregnancy, drugs, peer influence, distance, street videos, no interest, domestic work, single parent, strict discipline in school Management Committee and mothers: Early School Children: Cost, marriage.School not Emigration to Europe, Poor sharing attendance and performance, Drugs, performance, Migration, Pregnancy, Fear of Influence of parents, pregnancy, Early marriage, Distance, Domestic &farm Domestic work work, No prental interest, Low performance Reasons for not completing education, dropping out

Out of school children: Regional Technical Single parent, Cost, Farm Advisory Committee: and domestic work,Low Illiteracy, cost, Farms and performance, Marriage and domestic work, Negative teeage pregnancy, Ill- perception of school and health, Distance, Low self- madrassah, Single parent, esteem Early marriage, Child health, Disabilities

Community Members and Parents: Ignorance, Cost, Corporal punishment, Peer influence, Drug abuse, Pregnancy, Social network, mobile videos

Figure 12. Diagram showing the reasons for not completing education or dropping out from school or madrassah

The major reasons stated by the participants in response to the questions of not attending schools or dropping out early before completing a level of education are the following:

1. Financial Reasons

The major reason stated by different focus groups is the lack of money and resources. The lack of financial resources has also been mentioned as a barrier to education and the major reason for the dropout of children from school in several reports like LFS 2012. In the developing countries the employed persons are regarded as well-off and are in general considered better than others who don’t have regular jobs.

In the Gambia 58% of the employed persons have a monthly income of less than 40 US$ as reported by IHS 2010.

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A majority of people who never enrolled in school believe it was mainly due to financial reasons; many of the left-outs believe that they never enrolled due to lack of financial resources, while some stated the high expenses of education as one of the main reasons. As one would expect, financial constraints has been stated as one of the main reasons for never joining education by more people who belong to lower income households. In low income households the majority have stated the expenses on education and a lack of financial resources as one of the main reasons for being left-out. It would be recalled that in 2013 the Gambia Government introduced the School Improvement Grant (SIG) which substantially removed all fees and levies for school; but has not gone far enough to remove the hidden cost of education such as transportation, school uniforms, stationary, books, notebooks and school meals.

Case study:

Mustafa is the care taker of a guest house in Banjul earning a 2-3 thousand Dalasi per month. He has completed Grade 12 education and wanted to continue his education but due to the death of his father; who was a fisherman, could not continue his education and started looking for a job. Mustafa’s father had two wives, the older one had one son (the elder brother of Mustafa), who is married, employed and live in a separate house with his mother and his own family. He did not support his younger brothers and sisters from the second wife of his father. Ultimately Mustafa got a position of the care taker in the local guest house. Mustafa is a very intelligent young man and knew how to develop business of the guest house. His smiling face, honesty and helpful attitude attracted many foreigners to the guest house and the owners have full confidence in him. The owners now pay seldom visits to the guest house and he is responsible for all the business activities.

His younger brother Omer was a student when Mustafa started working for the guest house. Mustafa tried his best to help his brother complete his studies. On passing Grade 12 examination Omer also started looking for a paid job but could not get any. Omer like Mustafa wanted to continue his education but due to the lack of resources could not do so. Omer’s completion of education to Grade 12 is attributed to Mustafa’s job. Mustafa was also unable to pay for the high expenses of University education besides supporting the mother, sisters and two young brothers on his small salary.

Omer was employed in the same guest house on a part time basis as a gardener working for three days a week and getting 600 Dalasi per month. Both these brothers are very hard working and intelligent and interested in pursuing their education but the meager income they get as compensation of their hard work is hardly sufficient to cope with the high household expenses and the costs on their younger brother and sisters education. The employment of Mustafa and Omer helped in eliminating the risk of dropping out of their sisters and brothers from the school. The government though claim to provide free education at school level but the individual cost on schooling like purchase of uniform, books, notebooks, bags, transportation, stationary and pocket money etc. swell up to an extent that for many families it becomes unaffordable.

The reason comes out as a surprise when considering that in recent years, public school education has been made free across the country. In fact there are two types of expenses that still are a burden for poor families. Primarily, out of pocket expenses on uniform and stationery on the one hand and transportation cost on the other hand.

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For a family earning less than 2,000 Dalasi a month, sparing money for uniform, stationery and transportation is still a huge expense.

Secondly, opportunity cost in terms of an older person taking out time to drop the children to school or the family sparing a child for a considerable time out of house, farm or shop, who could contribute in one way or the other in assisting the family and increasing the family income. In some of the Madrassahs tuition fees are still charged from the students, is a great burden for the poor families.

Another barrier for the children to get entry in to the first stage of education is the dominance of private sector in ECD level education. The following table shows the number of ECD centres in different ownerships, the enrolment and the percentages of centres’ ownership and enrolment.

Ownership of ECD Number of ECD Percent Enrolment Percent centres Centres Government 376 33 23,897 24

Private 576 50 60,680 60

Madrassahs 174 15 13,964 14

Uncertain ownership 15 2 1,808 2 Table 63. Showing ownership of ECD centres and enrolment – MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16

Figure 13. Number and ownership of ECD Centres

15 174 376

576

Government Private Madrassahs Uncertain ownership

Figure showing number of ECD Centres at national level – Data MoBSE 2015-16

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Figre 14. Enrolment in ECD centres under different ownership

1,808

13,964 23,897

60,680

Government Private Madrassahs Uncertain ownership

Figure showing enrolment in ECD centres under different ownership- Data MoBSE 2015-16

The private sector has 50% share in the number of ECD centres and 60% in the ECD enrolment. The government has only 33% centres with 24% enrolment. Madrassah has 15% share in ECD centres ownership with 14% enrolment whereas the rest of 2% in number of ECD and 2% in enrolment are in the ECD centres with uncertain ownership.

The role of private sector in the provision of services and facilities, no doubt, is extremely important for the people in different sectors. On the one hand it reduces the burden on the part of government and on the other hand creates a sort of competition in provision of services and facilities to the people with others providing similar services. However the private sector institutions have to recover not only the costs of the services but also get some profits against the spending. In this particular area, the expanding role of the private sector may create barriers for the poor families who are hesitant to send their children to the free government schools. The government should have a major share in the number of centres and in enrolment and only a fraction should be left for the private sector. Thus the poor parents would have an easy access to the free ECD facilities in their areas.

2- Religious reason

According to the IHS 2010 Part 1 report, 66% of students are enrolled in public schools, 14% in private schools, 6% in grant-aided schools and 14% in Madrassahs. The main reason of the population aged 3 years and over to be out of school is religion as reported by 47.7% of the surveyed population. In the rural areas it is higher, 55.7% compared to the urban areas 35.3%. In the Gambia, many parents are happy to send their children to Daras rather than school to support this religious reason.

The reason has also been mentioned by several groups during FGDs. Some religious leaders are strictly against school and madrassah education and regard it as a system of western education contrary to the religious education. They openly persuade their followers not to send their children to these institutions instead plead for their admission in Daras.

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In the rural areas these religious leaders being very influential in opinion making, people have no choice but to obey them blindly on such advices. Many persons, who are against Daras, also send their children there to learn Quran either in the morning session before they go to school or in the evening session after they return from school. In fact the limited role of Daras as a centre for learning Quran, Ahadees or Tafseer has always been appreciated but the extended role to be the substitute for all educational areas has been criticized. Apparently there seems to be limited or no control over opening of such centres or new Daras and once opened and starts operations then there is no regulatory authority to monitor their activities, or audit their accounts or prescribe certain curriculum.

There is a need for establishing a regulatory authority for the registration of such institutions like Daras or Majalis and efforts are required to bring these students in the mainstream of education. The current efforts of ISRA, initially the intervention of literacy and numeracy courses in Daras, no doubt, are very useful but it will take years to transform the system. An expedited action through the Presidential Orders or Act of Parliament followed by policy and strategy development will be required to transform the system with an accelerated rate.

3. Not Allowed by Parents

Apart from financial and religious reasons, many excluded children say that they were not allowed by their parents to enroll into school. This reason is more pronounced for women than for men: the excluded female children believe that this is one of the main reasons for them being left-out. This indicates also that parents’ decisions have a substantial effect on the exclusion of a child from education. This indicated the importance the mother’s education has on over enrolling in school and implies that the decision of parents to bar children from school depends predominantly on the mother’s own access to education. As stated earlier the more the mother is educated the more is the willingness to get their children enrolled in schools. Fathers’ education also plays an important role but mothers’ education is more important for the children’s education.

A clear policy does not exist for strengthening the adults’ literacy programme especially for girls and women and establishing coaching centres for those dropouts who now desire to pursue their education in different areas. If developed and implemented then the existing school infrastructure, used in the morning and remaining free in the evening can be used for such centres and the teachers can also be engaged in these centres by paying them some extra remuneration. This will help them continue their job in the morning and pursue the educational courses in the evening.

The literacy centres and the coaching centres for the dropouts will increase the literacy and education levels of the population who have left the education, thus would have an indirect influence on their children education. Incentive schemes introduced for those pursuing education and again becoming part of the mainstream education after spending years outside the system will further encourage others to pursue their education.

4. Household Work/Employment Reasons

Some left outs claim that they never enrolled into school because the household work or job pulled them out. Boys and girls have been pulled out of education due to household or farm work.

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Household and farm work puts more pressure on enrollment because household and farm work may include informal employment or working in personal businesses set up at home, and the demand for additional members of the family for such work is high. This is an indirect financial reason for the children to be out of school. The family cannot afford the children to be enrolled into school as they would be deprived of the indirect financial benefit; the family gets out of the children either attending farm, shop or household and getting either direct financial gains or relieving the other members of the family to go out for getting better benefits or financial gains.

These issues cannot be adequately addressed unless the implementation of the legislation regarding child labour is ensured. The Ministry of Social Welfare, Labour and Works in coordination with the Ministry of Interior should initiate steps to ensure the implementation. Mere legislation and policy formulation would not work unless followed up by active implementation.

5. School’s Location

Distance from school is also a major factor affecting enrollment and completion; some children are left out from the education system because school is far off or dropped out earlier due to long distances to school. In rural areas all the sparsely populated small villages cannot have schools and the distance to school for the children is longer than that in urban areas. Considering the subjectivity of the variable of distance from school, one would expect distance from school to be a more significant barrier for girls. This barrier to education is generally more pronounced for girls than for boys; the parents of girl children are more concerned about their safety, security and harassment. This differential between boys and girls may be attributed to the subjective nature of perceived distance, however, it is also possible that the actual distance of the nearest school for girls and boys is the same, but the access is a bit difficult for the girls hence considered distant.

6. No personal interest/Unaware of usefulness of education

Some children never enroll into school because they are not interested in studying and others claim they never enrolled because they believe education is not useful for them. Both these reasons are more pronounced for both boys and girls. Some say they are not interested though no other reason like lack of finances, or parental disagreement or household or farm work was stated for their being left-out. It seems that still many children are less interested in attaining education and are less aware of its usefulness. This means schools need to be supported to integrate well into communities and be attractive to children rather than being repulsive.

As a policy the government’s intervention is required to prepare the communication strategy for the education sector activities. The media can play a pivotal role in making the masses aware of the usefulness of education and studies. Through the different programmes, advertisements, dramas, stories, case studies, talk shows and several other programmes the significance of education can be highlighted and the masses can be made aware of the importance of studies and education. Exclusive television and radio channels for education programmes can be introduced.

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7. Mother’s Education

A higher proportion of dropouts have illiterate mothers. A high percentage of LBE or UBE level dropouts have illiterate mothers. The mother’s education should also be focused when efforts are made to reduce the dropout. The more the mothers are educated the lesser are the chances for the drop out of their children. Alongside the children’s education, projects should also be developed to target the mothers’ education. Many mothers who are dropping their children in schools are desirous of getting education.

Intergenerational effects of education are present for mother’s education. The magnitude of the effect reduces as the level of education increases. This can be evidenced from MICS 2010 report indicating a correlation of mothers’ education with children Net Attendance Ratio. Mothers with no education have children with Net Attendance Ratio (Adjusted) as 30.4; those with primary education have children with 45.5, while those mothers with secondary education have their children NAR as high as 58.19.

8. Father’s Education

Some dropouts are due to illiterate fathers, they may need additional helping hands in the farms or shops or workshops to assist them or to take care when they need to be away from the shops or farms for certain reasons.

The additional persons employed would cost them handsome money and they cannot afford it so would like their children to stay at farms or shops and to learn the skills they have acquired through the years. The intergenerational effect of father’s education is less pronounced than that of mother’s education. Therefore, investing in female education has a stronger effect on the long-run development in educational attainment of their children.

Early Pregnancy or Early Marriage

This has also been stated as the reason for girls to be out of school or to be dropped out from the school before completing an education cycle. Many areas especially the rural Gambia are conservative in their approach to education. Instead of continuing their children education, many parents prefer them to keep out of school as to avoid the children’s early pregnancy and early marriages. In many Muslim societies this issue has been resolved by opening separate schools for boys and girls after primary education and some even have separate schools at the primary level thus avoiding the free mixing of girls with the boys. On pilot basis in some of the traditional areas separate schools for boys and girls may be opened and the results, if found satisfactory, this practice may be replicated in other places. Some advocates of coeducation though label it as a primitive practice but many Muslim countries in Asia have been successfully implementing it and consequently have produced the world top female journalists, scientists, bureaucrats and top leaders in all areas.

Gambia MICS 2010 reports that about one in five young women age 15-19 years are currently married (23.5%).

9 Table ED 5 of MICS 2010 report – page 142

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This proportion varies between urban (15.9%) and rural (31.4%), and is strongly related to the level of education. The finding shows that the higher the educational attainment of the woman, the less likely they get married before ages 15 or 18. The tendency for a woman to be married before ages 15 or 18 is highest among the Fula and Sarahuleh headed households.

About 47 per cent of all women were married before the age 18 years and about 9 per cent were married before 15 years. The proportion of women getting married before age 15 and 18 was highest in rural than in urban areas and the averages were higher than the national averages.10

Other reasons

The population age 5-30 who never attended school mentioned several reasons for not attending. The total surveyed population of age 5-30 in LFS 2012, the percent responses of not attending school and the separate for male and female respondents as reported in LFS report is given in the following table:

Reasons for not attending school

ion not

Total Illness Others School Disabled schooling schooling schooling Cannot afford Educat To learn a job School too far business/farm Attend QuranicAttend school school not safe To work pay for worker family in Not interested in Percent responses household chores Help at Help at home with To work as unpaid Family did notallow considered valuable

Perce 10. 1. 3. 24. 29. 0. 0. 0. nt 7.5 6.8 2.1 6.3 0.3 6.4 2.2 100.0 1 3 2 0 2 1 4 1 Total

Perce nt 1. 3. 24. 32. 0. 0. 0. 7.9 7.2 7.0 1.6 8.9 0.3 4.0 1.9 100.0 Femal 6 3 0 0 0 3 0 e

Perce 13. 0. 2. 24. 25. 0. 0. 0. nt 8.1 6.5 2.9 2.6 0.3 9.7 2.6 100.0 0 9 9 1 3 2 6 1 Male Table 64. Reasons for not attending school – Source: LFS 2012

10 Gambia MICS 2010 – Page 158

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Attend Quranic To work as unpaid School, 6.4 worker in family Disabled, 0.3 business/farm, 2.1 Others, 2.2 Illness, 1.3 Help at home with household chores, Too young, 10.1 School too far, 3.2 6.3 To work for pay, 0.1 To learn a job, 0.4

school not safe, 0.1

Education not considered valuable, 6.8

Not interested in schooling, 7.5

Cannot afford schooling, 24

Family did not allow schooling, 29.2

Figure 15: Reasons for children not attending school

January 2017 76 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Besides the reasons mentioned above for not attending school, LFS 2012 reported the following additional reasons:

1. The children are too young for the school 2. The children could not attend due to illness 3. The children are not interested in school 4. The family did not allow schooling for the children 5. School is not safe 6. To learn a job 7. Disabled 8. Because of attending Quranic school.

Those who attended school and did not continue further indicated the following reasons for their discontinuation:

Reasons for discontinuation of schooling

economic - Total Others activity) valuable Disabled Marriage Join familyJoin Pregnancy Learn skillsLearn tion not considered School too far Percent responses To work/ do a job Too oldToo for school (economic activity) Poor Poor studies/in not interested studiesin Cannot afford school To help householdin Expelled from school Completed schooling chores (non Educa Family did’ntallow school

Perce 26. 0. 1. 37. 1. 11. 2. 3. 3. 2. 4. 0. 0. 0. 0. 2. nt 100.0 4 0 4 2 7 3 1 5 4 2 7 1 1 2 3 0 Total

Perce nt 23. 3. 1. 36. 2. 10. 2. 1. 4. 4. 8. 0. 0. 0. 0. 2. 100.0 Femal 1 2 3 0 1 5 1 5 0 3 8 1 1 0 4 5 e

Perce 29. 0. 1. 38. 1. 12. 2. 5. 2. 0. 0. 0. 0. 0. 0. 1. nt 100.0 8 1 5 5 4 1 2 6 7 1 6 2 1 4 1 6 Male Table 65. Reasons for discontinuation of schooling- LFS 2012

The reasons indicated in the above two tables have also been given separately for male and female respondents. For some of the items the differences in responses of male and female respondents are very wide but in others the differences are negligible. The two figures, prepared one for each table, are based on the combined (male and female) responses for each item.

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Education not considered valuable Poor in studies/ not 2% interested in studies To work/ do a job (economic 12% activity) Family did’nt allow school 4% 2% To help in household chores (non-economic activity) 4% Pregnancy 2%

Marriage 5%

Cannot afford school 39% Others 2%

Completed schooling 27% School too far Fig 16. Reasons for discontinuation 1% of schools

The LFS 2012 reported the following reasons of dropping out from school:

1. Cannot afford school 2. Completed schooling 3. School distance 4. Marriage 5. Pregnancy 6. Poor in studies/ not interested in studies 7. Family didn’t allow schooling 8. To help in household chores 9. Education not considered valuable 10. To work/do a job

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Chapter 4

Conclusions and recommendations

The Education Policies of 1988-2003, 2004-2015 and 2016-2030 emphasize on the important issues of access, quality, equity and relevance of education. The implementation of these policies resulted in considerable growth in GER and NER. From the general public the demand for education is now higher than the supply from the government. This may be evidenced by the enrolment which is almost double the number of seats available in the public sector schools. In the private sector schools the enrolment is almost equal to the number of seats available. However the quality and the rate of continuity for the students to the next grades is low, especially for girls, as not all children admitted in grade 1 continue to upper basic education levels. According to Country Status Report 2010, out of 69% children starting education in the LBE, only 63% reach grade 9 and only 17% achieve pass marks in mathematics indicating a major issue in quality. Furthermore the rural poor girls have only 1% chance of reaching grade 12 compared to 43% of boys in urban areas. So there is also an issue of internal efficiency besides the issue of quality.

1. Quality of education

The delivery of quality of education has always been the concern of the MoBSE in spite of all the challenges posing the education sector. The improvement of students’ learning outcomes has always been a national priority highlighted in the education policy. The strengthening of teachers’ capacity, school management structures and reforms within the teacher training programmes has been in focus of education policies. Efforts are also needed in the following areas to improve further the quality of education to attract more and more enrolment. a) Reforms in ECD

The ECD centres are present in all regions in rural and urban areas and are attracting girls and boys from the different socio-economic backgrounds with the intentions that they would continue education. No doubt the ECD in the Gambia has shown a tremendous achievement in enrolment and increase in number of ECD centres during the past few years, particularly in disadvantaged communities. This has been done mainly due to innovative model of increasing access to ECD in deprived regions by opening of ECD centres attached to LBE schools. This cost effective innovative method has facilitated the provision of ECD to the deprived regions and communities.

The ECD centres can further be strengthened by opening more and more centres in the public sector. The private sector, no doubt, has more than 50% share in number of centres and has attracted more than 60% of enrolment but instead the public sector should have more shares in number of centres and enrolment. Being the first entry point in education for the children, the public sector should provide better services for the children to continue their education and help in retaining them in the schools for completion of their education. The following table shows the number ECD centres, their ownership, and the percentage of male, female and trained teachers.

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Ownership of Number of % Number of % Number of % Number % ECD centres teachers male female of teachers teachers trained teacher s Government 566 18.4 394 69.6 172 30.4 523 92.4

Private 2,079 67.6 774 37.2 1,305 62.8 1,436 69.1

Madrassahs 394 12.8 282 71.6 112 28.4 198 50.2

All ECD 3,072 100 1,458 47.5 1,614 52.5 2,182 71.0 centres including those with uncertain ownership Table 66: ECD number and percentage of teachers by gender & ownership of centres – adopted from yearbook 2015-16

In ECD centres there are 3,072 teachers; including 47.5% male and 52.5% female teachers, 71 percent trained and 29 percent untrained. In the public sector schools there are 566 teachers; including 394 male and 172 female teachers. The male-female ratio of teachers in the government owned schools is 70:30. In Madrassahs ECD centres the ratio of male teachers to female teachers is 72:28 whereas in the private ECD centres the ratio of male teachers to female teachers is 37:63.

In the ECD centres the female facilitators are considered more suitable for teaching at this stage and in many countries this is considered as the females’ exclusive job but in the Gambia in the public sector ECD centres the male teachers are dominating having 70% positions and the female only 30% of the total number. Steps should be taken to replace the male teachers with the female teachers. Centres with all female teachers are more successful than the centres with male or mixed male and female teachers. In many countries when they switched over to recruit only female teachers at ECD and in some at primary levels, they did it in a phased manner by recruiting all the new entrants as female and transferring the male to other institutions if they have the basic and professional qualifications. The women are emotionally attached to school children as they helped their own children. They deal with the minor children kindly and patiently. Even psychologically a child feels more comfortable with woman teacher than a man teacher.

The government should ensure that in future for the success of programmes the following steps are taken:

 More and more centres are opened in public sector so that more families would have access to ECD services, which hitherto is dominated by the private sector.

 The public sector ECD centres should have better facilities for the children to stay in the centres and continue till completion;

 Trained females facilitators are available in all centres and the existing male facilitators are replaced by trained female facilitators;

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 The pool of expert female teachers should be developed to specialize only in ECD teaching, these expert teachers should not be deputed to teach at the primary level and their services should exclusively be used for ECD levels;

 The ECD centres should be equipped with the necessary materials and audio-visuals to benefit the students;

 The ECD policy and strategic plan along with an action plan should be developed and approved by the government for implementation.

b. Teachers continued education

The quality of education should be constantly improved by providing teachers in-service training to keep them abreast of the new developments in education. To make them aware of the latest techniques and modalities in educating their students and help them apply these techniques in their institutions. The institutions should be provided with the modern equipment and encouraged to make optimum use of resources. The following three tables indicate the number of teachers in LBE, UBE and SSE schools, the number of male and female teachers and the number and percentage of trained teachers.

Ownership of Number of % Number of % Number of % Number % LBE schools teachers male female of teachers teachers trained teachers

Government 5,637 64.5 3,542 62.8 2,095 37.2 5,461 96.8

Grant aided 533 6.1 316 59.3 217 40.7 424 79.5

Private 1,155 13.2 764 66.2 391 33.8 928 80.3

Madrassahs 1,405 16.1 1,155 82.2 250 17.8 779 55.4

Total 8,730 100 5,777 66.2 2,953 33.8 7,592 87% Table 67. Showing number of male and female teachers and number of trained teachers at LBE levels 2015-16, Source: MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16

The above table shows that at LBE level almost one third of teachers are female whereas at this level the enrolment of girls is higher than that of boys. The gender gap at this level needs to be bridged up. Apart from the gender gap there is a need for filling the gap of training of teachers by organizing special training programmes for the untrained teachers. The public sector schools have only 3% untrained teachers, but the grant-aided and private schools have about 20% untrained teachers. In Madrassahs the percentage of untrained teachers is about 45%.

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Ownership of Number of % Number of % Number of % Number % UBE schools teachers male female of teachers teachers trained teacher s

Government 2,400 61.5 1,809 75.4 591 24.6 2,334 97.3

Grant aided 466 11.9 377 80.9 89 19.1 437 93.8

Private 504 12.9 430 85.3 74 14.7 491 97.4

Madrassahs 531 13.6 484 91.1 47 8.9 390 73.4

Total 3,901 100 3,100 79.5 801 20.5 3,652 93.6 Table 68. Showing number of male and female teachers and number of trained teachers at UBE levels 2015-16. Source MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16

At the level of UBE the gender gap is still wider but the training gap has narrowed down. In Madrassahs about 27% of teachers are untrained, in grant aided schools 6%, and in public and private sector schools about 2.5% of teachers are untrained.

Ownership of Number of % Number of % Number of % Number % SSE schools teachers male female of teachers teachers trained teacher s

Government 536 23.2 466 86.9 70 13.1 528 98.5

Grant aided 887 38.4 796 89.7 91 10.3 853 96.2

Private 583 25.2 511 87.6 72 12.3 557 95.5

Madrassahs 306 13.2 297 97.1 9 2.9 280 91.5

Total 2,312 100 2,070 89.5 242 10.5 2,218 95.9 Table 69. Number of teachers male and female and the number of trained teachers at SSE level- MoBSE Yearbook 2015-16

As we go from the lower level to upper level of educational institutions, from LBE to SSE we find that the gender gap becomes wider and wider and the training gap becomes narrower. On the average 10% of female teacher are employed in SSE institutions and only 4% of teachers are untrained.

January 2017 82 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report c) School Feeding Programme (SPF)

In the Gambia the school feeding programme though started in 1970 in some schools is still continued and mainly such items like edible oil, rice, beans/ peas and iodized salt are provided to the enrolled students in selected assisted schools. The practice of purchasing these items from the local market is very encouraging for the local traders and farmers.

Instead of using only one type of programme for school feeding, a strategy needs to be developed to include different methods of SFP to expand the scope of coverage and the extent of assistance.

 The school feeding programme though still continued in most of the LGAs but was temporarily stopped in Kerewan, Kuntaur and Janjanbureh LGAs. The school feeding programme has been helpful to improve attendance, cognition, enrolment and retention of students in schools. In the school feeding programme the oil, rice, peas, beans are procured from the local farmers/traders to encourage them produce/trade these items. The temporary discontinuation will directly affect the children.

 The School Feeding Programme (SPF) is run not only in developing countries but also in several developed countries where the parents are committed to get their children admitted in schools. The food is considered useful supplement for the children health to remove the short term hunger, to increase their concentration in learning and consequently increase attendance in schools.

 Based on certain indicators like enrolment, dropout rate, promotion rate and repetition rate the progress in education achievement in the SFP assisted schools can be monitored.

 Different methods of SFP can be used like wet method (lunch / breakfast served in school) or dry method (high energy biscuits/snacks) and/or take home ration to support families of children attending schools.

 The schools assisted with SFP should not continue getting such assistance forever, but the MoBSE should have an exit strategy for the SFP to change the category of assistance and at a later stage stop the SFP assistance. d) School Health Programme (SHP)

In the Gambia there is a need for a strong school health programme for students and teachers. It is an established fact that a student living in a better environment can show better performance and can participate well in all teaching learning processes than the one living in a poor environment exposed to several hazards, hunger, diseases and worries. The improved learning environment enables the students to be better citizens and to play their role in a more effective way in all nation building efforts. The girls and boys attending schools need to know; what hygienic measures at personal and community levels can reduce the risks of the common infectious and parasitic diseases, and also the significance of physical education, sports and appropriate nutrition. The teachers and community members are expected to know how to guide and counsel the students in need of psycho-social care, and prevention from the diseases.

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With the availability of such services at school level, the students, their parents, teachers and community members will be benefitted and with the implementation of measures suggested in the programme will have positive impact on reducing pressure on curative side. The programme will be a complete package including an awareness of wash, school gardening, kitchen gardening, nutrition, balanced diet, wash, exercises and sports, hygienic measures and preventive measures from the common diseases.

The school health programme may be initiated to focus on the students’ health and preventive measures of the common diseases. Many countries including several countries of the African continent have initiated the school health programme and found it very useful for the students and their families. It is because of this programme that the health of the students and their families has improved while taking care of preventing measures of the common diseases and the corresponding pressure on curative side has been considerably reduced in these countries where the programme is operational. The government with the assistance of UNICEF and WHO can prepare and initiate the school health programme initially in one region on pilot basis and then extended to others.

2. Child rights

Education is the basic right of every child, the parents or citizens have to accept and honour this fundamental right. If a child is deprived of this right the responsibility is upon the parents or guardians of the child. Apart from education the children have the right to have full access to health, food, water, freedom, protection and above all to a healthy life. a) Implementation of compulsory primary education

The constitution of the Gambia though provides for free and compulsory education for all children but the implementation remained difficult for the government due to lack of resources and infrastructure. The new government is expected to invest more in education and hopefully will implement it in letter and spirit. b) Strictly imposing ban on corporal punishment in schools

In the Gambia, corporal punishment is still used in some schools. In the FGDs some participants pointed out that it is one of the reasons for the dropping out from school for some students. The study by Save the Children, Sweden 2005 also revealed that children are being corporally punished in school. The MICS 2010 reports that over 90% of children of age 2-14 were subjected to physical or psychological punishment at home. This attitude of parents also needs to be changed. Strict disciplinary action should be taken against teachers and head teachers of schools administering corporal punishment. c) Strictly imposing ban on exploitative child labour and street begging

Though the official figures on child labour and street begging are not available but a considerable number may be seen in cities and towns.

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Many of out of school children opt to get some paid jobs to get some financial support for the family, or learn some skill or work in farms, shops or as street vendors. The children who are not enrolled as regular students in schools get informal religious education from Daras and some of the Marabous use these children for street begging and collecting alms from the neighbourhood. Strict actions on banning child labour and child begging should be imposed and the culprits should be severely punished. A regulatory body for Daras or Majalis should be established to limit and control their roles and audit their funds and prescribe their curricula. d) Strictly banning child marriage

The Gambia Children’s act 2005 under Section 2(1) says “child is a person under the age of 18. Section 24 says “no child is capable of contracting a valid marriage and a marriage so contracted is voidable. But in practice as MICS 2010 reported that 8.6% of women aged 15- 49 got married or in union before 15th birthday while 46.5% were married or in union before their 18th birthday. Early marriage or union is one of the factors of girls’ dropout. Strict actions are needed to punish those violating the rules.

The government should strictly implement the ban imposed on early marriage and the early- age pregnancy. The rules framed for the age limit of man and woman at the time of marriage should be strictly followed and those violating the rules should be punished. Being sensitive issues the local SMCs/PTAs and the LGA can be involved in dealing with such cases. In the FGDs some participants spoke on the fear of pregnancy to be an important factor for many girls remaining out of school or dropping out from school at an early stage.

Though in the Gambia it would sound odd to many readers but it is an established fact that separate schools established for boys and girls can easily resolve this issue of fear of pregnancy to a greater extent. The Muslim world has successfully experiment it and now they are having their institutions, not only at school level but also at university level separate for men and women. They have been successful in producing the world fame scientists, lawyers, journalists, doctors, engineers and other professionals. No doubt, the experiment will appear, in the first instance, wastage of resources, but if staggered initially through a rationalized process in certain areas having a number of institutions of the same level, some specified for boys and others for girls, will be cost effective. The impact of the gender based rationalized can be evaluated and if found successful can be replicated in other places. e) Compulsory birth registration

To keep a track record of individuals, the registration of births for the children is very important. MICS 2010 reports that only 52.5% of children under five are registered. If properly done for all the children then it is possible for the state to monitor the age related activities; like sending the children to school for free and compulsory education, control over age of marriage and child labour.

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3. Social protection programmes a) Incentive schemes

Incentive schemes are developed in many countries for raising the performance level of individuals or institutions. The best performers are usually rewarded but in some of the incentive schemes several categories of performance are made and for the sake of rewards only the least performers’ categories are considered and rewarded. This is to encourage the institutions at the bottom of performance ladder to get motivation for further development and raising the level initially to the average level and raising further to above average. The awards and incentive schemes should consider the performance in many items like the increase in enrolment, the performance in attendance of students, SMCs regular meetings, reducing dropouts, cleanliness in and out of school, co-curricular activities and performance of students in schools. Separate incentive schemes can be prepared for the students, teachers, SMCs, head teachers, parents and communities. Similar incentive schemes should be developed for the institutions and individuals to improve the performance at the institutional level.

Incentive schemes developed for the students would help reduce the dropout. This may include the expansion of scope of school feeding programme in areas where there is more expected dropouts. b) Cash transfer

Girls’ stipend in selected areas where there is expected dropouts of girl students. Assistance in provision of uniform, textbooks, notebooks, teaching learning materials or some cash to support transportation cost should be provided to the needy students. Some students really need a bit push up in terms a little financial assistance to avoid them from dropping out. At the local levels the LGA can find means and resources to provide such assistance to prevent the expected dropouts.

There are different types of cash transfer schemes operated in different countries targeting selected groups. In South Sudan the girls are unlikely to continue their studies beyond Primary 5 or Secondary 4 class, so an intervention of cash transfer has been planned at these levels to prevent them from dropping out. Similarly in Kenya and Brazil unconditional and conditional cash transfer programmes are operated for selected groups.

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In South Sudan all girls in P5-S4 who are regularly attending school are eligible for a once- yearly cash payment. 184,254 individual girls have received a Cash Transfer. By the time the project ends in 2018 it is expected that around 200,000 individual girls will have benefited from at least one Cash Transfer, and half a million payments will have been made. Research suggests that they are already beginning to have a positive impact. A survey carried out in September 2015 by Forcier Consulting and Charlie Goldsmith Associates showed that it was consistently the case that the intended recipient girl had received the Cash Transfer, received the full amount, and in almost every case had been able to spend the money herself, typically on education-enabling items. The findings also suggest that girls who receive Cash Transfers remain in school longer and attend school more frequently than the historic norm. A rigorous independent analysis by Lee Crawfurd (University of Sussex & Center for Global Development) on the impact of GESS 2014- 2016, based on the national SSSAMS data set, found that Capitation Grants and Cash Transfers make schools more likely to remain open, increase their enrolment numbers, and increase attendance rates, despite the prevalence of substantial ongoing levels of violence and conflict.

Common items the girls spend their transfers on include books, clothing and sanitary items, all of which allow them to attend school more regularly, and which better prepare them for studying. Speaking about the impact the transfer has had on her life, student Rhoda says “some of our parents are poor and cannot afford to buy us what we need”, and therefore receiving the money “gave me freedom” and meant she was less reliant on her parents for essential school items.11

c) Providing transport facilities to children in certain areas to facilitate access

Transport facilities if made available in places where the distances of schools are considerable may be a good support for the children. In the Gambia there are 958 LBE schools, 390 UBE schools and 160 SSE schools as per MoBSE yearbook 2015-16. This means that those passing out from LBE schools will mostly be travelling longer distances to attend UBE schools because on the average for each UBE school there are almost 2.5 LBE feeding schools. Similarly the children who pass out from the UBE schools will be required to attend SSE schools. The distances will be further increased for many children.

Again for each SSE schools there are almost 2.5 UBE feeding schools and on the average for each SSE school there are almost 6 LBE feeding schools. The support in transportation will be appreciated by children and their parents and this will contribute in attracting OOSC and reduce dropouts.

Solutions from the FGDs for issues raised in discussion

As a result of discussions with the different groups the following were the solutions they suggested for the issues raised in discussions:

11 http://girlseducationsouthsudan.org/cash-transfers/

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Unconditional cash transfer programs: Piloted in 2004 and expanded nationwide in 2007, Kenya’s Cash Transfers for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC) program is an example of an unconditional cash transfer program that has demonstrated statistically significant effects on secondary school enrollment for orphans or children with otherwise unstable family situations (Kenya CT-OVC Evaluation Team, 2012). Reaching over 265,000 orphans and vulnerable children across Kenya, the program offers flat monthly transfers of Ksh 1,500 (roughly 20 USD) to ultra-poor households. Based on a self-evaluation comparing 1,540 households in the treatment and 754 in the control group, impact estimates indicate a positive 8 percent difference in enrollments in the treatment versus control group for children over the age of 12. In spite of the relatively small sample, this effect size is comparable to that of CCT programs in other parts of the world (such as Turkey, Colombia and Bangladesh) in spite of the lack of enforcement of penalties for non-compliance (Kenya CT-OVC Evaluation Team, 2012).12

Conditional cash transfer programs: In spite of the potential benefits of UCTs, much more evidence has been obtained on the effectiveness of CCTs in reducing child labor for the sake of better school attendance, especially in Latin American contexts. Brazil's Bolsa Escola (renamed Bolsa Familia in 2003) is the world’s largest CCT program with over 11 million families (about 46 million people) receiving Bolsa payments by 2007. The program provides monthly cash payments to poor households with children between the ages of 6 to 15 conditional on those children enrolling in school and attending at least 85 percent of school days. Using school census data, Glewwe and Kassouf (2010) estimate that, after accounting for cumulative effects, the Bolsa program increased enrollment by about 5.5 percent in grades 1-4 and by about 6.5 percent in grades 5-8 in Brazil. The program lowered dropout rates by about 0.5 percentage points and raised grade promotion rates by about 0.9 percentage points for children in grades 1-4. It reduced dropout rates by about 0.4 percentage points and increased grade promotion rates by about 0.3 percentage points for children in grades 5-8. Glewwe and Kassouf (2010), however, notes that while the program has shown positive impacts on enrolment, dropout and promotion, simple calculations based on the enrollment impacts suggest that the likely benefits in terms of increased wages may not exceed the costs of the program.13

Teachers: Nation-wide campaign on significance of education, Strengthening parents-teacher relationship, Home visits of OOSC, parents’ educational visits, Competition and prize distribution ceremonies to attract attention of OOSC and

parents, school material supplies to students, school feeding, co-curricular why some some why

activities

SchoolMadrassah Children: Awareness campaign, Personal conduct of students & teachers, Home visits of OOSC, Involvement in domestics and social work to problem of: problem

parents would not send not send would parents convince their parents, Inviting OOSC in co-curricular activities Possible solutions to the the to solutions Possible their children to school or school to children their

12 https://www.unicef.org/rosa/LiteratureReview_InterventionsToReach_OOSC_UNICEF-ROSA.pdf - page 16 13 https://www.unicef.org/rosa/LiteratureReview_InterventionsToReach_OOSC_UNICEF-ROSA.pdf - page 18

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Regional Technical Advisory Committee: Wide campaign, parents’ involvement in decision making, Increasing access to school materials, Transform Daras, Flexible school rules & regulations, Inter-sectoral coordination. School mapping, LGA to support the needy students in financing education, Incentive schemes for best performing school Community Members and Parents: Parents’ groups to convince parents, Monitoring of children by parents, Frequent school visits by parents, Attitudinal change of parents towards western education Out of school children: Campaigns, supporting families with cost on education, Parents’ supervision, Parents sensitisation on education, Free textbooks, Children’s motivation, Ensure attendance, Check absenteeism Management Committee and mothers: Targeted campaigns, Training of mothers’ clubs and SMCs, School feeding programme.

Figure 17. Possible solutions to the problems of parents not sending children to school or madrassah

Wide publicity highlighting the significance of education

Almost all groups pointed out that there is a need of wide publicity through media on the significance of education for the general population in the country. The people in general seem to be unaware of the importance of individual’s education to the family and to the nation, therefore the individuals being ignorant don’t bother to get entry in to the educational institutions or to drop out at an early stage.

The programmes should have focus on the importance of education to the individual, to the family and to the nation. Many documentary programmes, dramas or other programmes can be produced or televised to create awareness of individuals and children to be attracted towards schools.

In the beginning only awareness programmes for the parents and the children can be produced and then followed by specialized programmes to assist in the teaching learning process to certain levels.

Parents-teachers relationship

Currently the PTAs and SMCs though exist in all schools but are either playing a very weak role or dormant role. SMCs/PTAs with clearly defined roles under the approved guidelines are necessitated for the success of grass-root level institutions. In many countries these are the bodies which have taken the responsibilities of minor repair, satisfying the immediate needs and requirements of the institutions, reducing the absenteeism of teachers and students in the schools, reducing dropouts from the school, raising funds for immediate needs, creating a good cordial relation between the teachers and the community and ultimately shifting the burden of M&E and supervisory responsibilities from the government to the community.

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In this way at a grass root level, more effective monitoring and supervisory system is established that results in relieving the staff for other productive professional roles.

In several of the FGDs the participants have wished to have these bodies established for good cordial relations between the teachers and the parents. Of course these bodies, if properly provided training for the new role will definitely contribute to the development of education. This will help in reducing dropouts and attracting new students to the schools by persuading the parents of the children who are out of school. The home visits to OOSC will be part of the duties of the members of PTAs or SMCs.

School events

The school administration including the head teachers, teachers, PTAs/SMCs or the department of education in general should encourage the local administration to celebrate some events in schools by inviting the local elders, parents, community members and others to participate. They would feel honoured to be invited and the students and teachers would feel great to have them in the school on certain occasions. This will also remove the gaps between the community and the school. The community will also get a feeling of ownership of the school affairs and will help in solving the problems if they can help at their levels. This interaction between the school and the community will facilitate to establish a cordial relation between them. The national days, sports activities, open days, prize distribution ceremonies and such other events can be jointly held by the school authorities with the cooperation of local communities.

The close interaction and coordination between the teachers and head teacher on the one hand and the parents and community members on the other will establish a relationship which could go further and help in reducing absenteeism of students and teachers, and reduce the dropout of students by visiting their houses for parents to send their children to schools. This can be the forum to visit and ask the parents to send their children to school to increase the overall enrolment of the school.

Suggestions to address the issues of dropouts

The participants of the FGDs also gave detailed suggestions to address the issues of dropouts from the school. The major solutions suggested for the problem by the different groups are listed in the following diagram. Some of the participants repeated the same points to address the dropout as for attracting the new entrants but others gave separate points addressing this issue.

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Teachers: Though counseling, Incentive schemes, Avoiding harassment, Home visits, Open day ceremonies, Strengthening teachers- parents relationship, Merit based rewards, Co-curricular activities, Assistance to needy students

School Children: Mutual advices, Sensitization, Guidance and counseling, Home visits, Home work groups/clubs, Improve student teacher relationship

Regional Technical Advisory Committee: Campaign on significance of education, Parents’ involvement in decision making, Facilitating access to schools/materials/books, Flexible school rules/regulations, Expanding the scope of school feeding programme, Inter-sectoral coordination, School mapping, LGAs to assist needy students, Incentive scheme, Home visits, Improve facilities, School health programme, Develop re-entry programme for dropouts, Publicity of laws against early marriage and child pregnancy

Community Members and Parents: Parents group to convince parents, Monitoring of children’s activities by parents, Frequent visits of parents to schools, Change of attitude of parents towards western education.

Out of school children: Support families with cost of education, Monitoring attendance by parents, Awareness of parents on education, Free Textbooks, Supervising children to follow books, Check absenteeism, Monitoring body to check absenteeism. of school children: Distance to school, Preference of type Solutions for reducing the dropout from from schools the dropout reducing for Solutions of school based on Management Committee and mothers: Reduce child marriage, Strengthen mothers’ club and SMCs, ECD school feeding programme, skills training to reduce back-way migration, coordination between parents and school on absenteeism of children and their performance Figure 18. Solutions for reducing dropouts from school

Guidance and counseling

Many students at some stage of their education leave the school on their own without the intervention of their parents or any other decision maker in the family. Their counseling if done in time will prevent them from dropping out. Even if the decision is made in consultation with the parents or any other adult family member the counseling through the teachers or community members or SMCs can help in withdrawing the decision of dropping out. The parents’ groups or SMCs through their visits to the potential dropouts can help change the decision and can make them go back to school.

What is needed at the government level is the approval of SMC guidelines and strict implementation/revival of SMCs in all schools to hold regular meetings and play active role in education development. The major role of the government is to allocate some suitable amount for spending on the school by members and empower them make decisions up to certain levels.

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Need for developing a communication strategy

In the Focus Group Discussions it was brought to the notice of moderators that many of the parents and community members are ignorant of the significance of education of their children. They don’t realize their duties to send their children to school and persuade them to get education. Many of the parents and community members are unaware of the facilities the government is providing in school. There is a need for the development of a communication strategy to make the masses aware of the efforts of the government in education sector. The strategy should have the following objectives:

1. To set up regular feedback mechanism to bring district, school and community level views through districts to central level

2. Produce regular, appropriately packaged information for implementing partners on education reforms

3. Develop an effective knowledge management system to collate, store, provide access to and disseminate key data across education system

4. Deliver teacher quality communication strand focusing on role modelling, guidance and incentives

5. Promote role of school management councils, and publish school level performance and resource information

6. Create wider public awareness on rights, reforms, outcomes and benefits

7. Set up a system of displaying individual school level information (School Report Card) in some visible place for the information of parents, children, community members and those interested in the educational information. The information should include the level of education, enrolment, No. of teachers, students and teachers attendance, missing facilities, electricity, water, boundary wall, toilets, science and IT labs, members of school council, No. of vacant and sanctioned posts and assessment/ examination results.

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References

1. GAMBIA EDUCATION REVIEW. MoBSE Gambia 2014 2. Baseline survey report for MoBSE-GAMBIA September 2009 “The state for Lower Basic Education in The Gambia” 3. UNDP_2010 “Integrated Household Survey Income And Expenditure Poverty Assessment 2010” 4. MoBSE and MINISTRY OF HIGHER EDUCATION, RESEARCH, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 2015 “The Gambia Education Sector strategic Plan 2014-2022” 5. Republic of The Gambia Department Of State For Education “GAMBIA Education policy 2004-2015 May 2004” 6. Ministries of Basic and Secondary Education and Higher Education Research Science and Technology – Education Sector Policy 2016-2030 – January 2016 7. GBoS 2013 “The Gambia Demographic and Health Survey September 2014” 8. GBoS The Gambia 2013 Population and Housing Census - Preliminary Results 9. UNICEF THE Gambia 2010 “Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey REPORT 2012” 10. Gambia OOSC 2009 “source: poverty and social impact analysis” 11. Gambia Country profile_2014 “countdown to 2015 maternal newborn and child survival” 12. Save the children 2005 “A Situational Analysis of Education In The GAMBIA January 2005” 13. MoBSE EMIS Data source - 2016 14. GBoS Population and Housing Census 2013 – Education Characteristics 15. UNICEF 2015 “Global Out of School Children Initiative Operational Manual Gambia” 16. UNICEF 2015 “Global Initiative on Out Of School Children-ESAR” 17. UNICEF & UNESCO institute of statistics 2015 “Out Of School Children Operational Manual” 18. FHI 360 the science of improving lives 2013 “Out of School Children Data Challenges” 19. UNICEF UNHCR ERIKS 2014 “OUT OF SCHOOL CHILDREN STUDY REPORT” 20. UNFPA & GBoS 2013 “The Gambia Population and Housing census 2013 Provisional Report” 21. Situation Analysis of Children and Woman in The Gambia 2010 report 22. MOBSE & Directorate of Planning, Policy Analysis, Research and Budgeting 2014 “Educational Statistics 2013/2014” 23. MOBSE & Directorate of Planning, Policy Analysis, Research and Budgeting 2015 “Educational Statistics 2014/2015”

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24. MOBSE & Directorate of Planning, Policy Analysis, Research and Budgeting 2016 “Educational Statistics 2015/2016” 25. Ministry of Health & Social Welfare, Directorate of Planning & Information, service Statistics report 2015, HMIS April 2016 26. GBoS Population Revised Estimates and Projections (2003-2020) At National, LGA and District Levels- July 2011 27. GBoS- The Gambia Labour Force Survey (GLFS 2012), Final Report – February 2013 28. UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) Calculation of D 4- An Excel document used for calculation of Dimension 4 29. UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) Calculation of D 5- An Excel document used for calculation of Dimension 5 30. UNICEF Gambia Inception Report for OOSC study – September 2016 31. MDG Status Report 2014 Final 32. GBoS- Population 0-19 by single year 33. GBoS- Population 0-19 by single year by LGA 34. Several country reports on out of school children study

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ANNEX A

FGDs

The Focused Group Discussion were done in all regions targeting Teachers (RED 1 - Kanifing), school children (RED 2 – Brikama), Regional Technical Advisory Committee (RED 3 – Kerewan), Community members and Parents (RED 4 – Mansakonko), Out-of- school children (RED 5 – Janjanbureh) and School Management Committees and Mothers Clubs (RED 6 – Basse). The FGDs were conducted to establish reasons why parents would not send their children to either school or madrassa, and why some children would not complete (i.e. dropout from) either school or madrassa.

In each of the group discussions, answers were catalogued and ranked accordingly to level of significance as deemed by the respondents.

Key Questions Responses Solutions

Teachers (RED 1 - Kanifing)

1. In your  Lack of interest in formal education by  Sensitization on the experiences parents. Some parents are not Importance of education what are the interested in formal education. through media etc. main reasons  Limited earning capacity by parents.  Strengthen parents why some Some parents would want to send their teachers relationship parents would children to school but what they earn  Frequent visits or follow up not send their cannot take care of their family needs as visit to homes to talk to children to well as cater for their children’s parents on the importance either school education. of education. or madrassa?  Lack of foresight in the long term  Feld trip. Education visits to benefits of education. places could motivate  Some parents use their children for parents in the community to economic gains (Child labour). They send their kids to school prefer to expose their children to works  Competition and prize given that will earn them an immediate income ceremony. To organise than send them to school and wait for competitions and prize long term benefits. giving ceremonies to attract  Family succession plan. Some parents the attention of those in the would want their kids to succeed them in community to send their whatever they are engaged in especially kids to school. in their traditional chores.  Provision of materials for  Disability (Fear of exposing the disable). needy students  School feeding  Distance to school. Some communities  Extracurricular activities. still do not have easy access to school. Organising extracurricular  Discrimination against adopted children. can attract certain kids to Some children are adopted and their develop interest in school. guardians would prefer to send and care for their biological children than the adopted ones.

January 2017 95 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

 Low achievers (Some parents believe ANNEX A that their children are low achievers and FGDs as a result may not do well in school)  Cultural belief that formal education will alienate their children from their cultural The Focused Group Discussionnorms and valueswere done in all regions targeting Teachers (RED 1 - Kanifing), school children (RED 2 – Brikama), Regional Technical Advisory Committee (RED 3 – Kerewan), Community members and Parents (RED 4 – Mansakonko), Out-of-  school2. In childrenyour (RED Financial 5 – Janjanbureh) constraints. andSome School parents Management Through Committees counselling and experiences would send their children to school but  Motivation by giving them Mothers Clubs (RED 6 – Basse). The FGDs were conducted to establish reasons why what are the because of financial constraints, they will prizes parents would not send their children to either school or madrassa, and why some children main reasons be obliged to withdraw them.  Avoiding all sorts of would not complete (i.e. dropout from) either school or madrassa. why some  Failure in exams. Some kids do not harassment children perform well in exams as a result will  Home visits In each of the group discussions, answers were catalogued and ranked accordingly to level of would not prefer to quit.  Open day ceremonies significance as deemed by the respondents. complete (i.e.  Early marriage  Strengthen teachers parent dropout from)  Teenage pregnancy relationship Keyeither Questions school  Drug abuse/Responses narcotics  RewardSolutions according to merit  or madrassa?  Negative peer influence. Some children Organise extracurricular Teachers (RED 1 - Kanifing)are influenced by their peers to dodge activities  Provide resources for from school and are eventually needy students. 1. In your  Lackconvinced of interest by their in formal peers education to abandon by  Sensitization on the experiences parents.school completely. Some parents are not Importance of education what are the  interestedDistance toin schoolformal education. through media etc. main reasons  LimitedStreet videos,earning games,capacity gamblingby pare nts.etc.  Strengthen parents why some SomeSome parentschildren would dedicate want a greaterto send chunktheir teachers relationship parents would childrenof their totime school to butthe whataforementioned they earn  Frequent visits or follow up not send their cannotactivities take in carelieu of of their their schooling.family needs as visit to homes to talk to children to  wellLack ofas interest cater byfor children their themselves.children’s parents on the importance either school education.Some children would eventually lose of education. or madrassa?  Lackinterest of in foresightschool. in the long term  Feld trip. Education visits to  benefitsDomestic of workeducation. places could motivate  SomeEffect ofparents Divorce. use Divorce their atchildr timesen takes for parents in the community to economicits toll on gainssome (Childchildren’s labour). education. They send their kids to school  Competition and prize given preferSome tofathers expose will their leave children their kids to works in the ceremony. To organise thatmercy will ofearn their them mothers’ an immediate afters incomedivorce competitions and prize thanwho sendmight themnot beto ableschool to andpay waitfor theirfor giving ceremonies to attract longschooling. term benefits. the attention of those in the  FamilyRefusal succession of being disciplined plan. Some by teachers.parents community to send their wouldSome wantchildren their kidswould to succeedrather prefer them into kids to school. whateverleave school they tan are to engaged be disciplined. in especially  Provision of materials for in their traditional chores.  Disability (Fear of exposing the disable). needy students  School feeding  Distance to school. Some communities  Extracurricular activities. still do not have easy access to school. Organising extracurricular  Discrimination against adopted children. can attract certain kids to Some children are adopted and their develop interest in school. guardians would prefer to send and care for their biological children than the adopted ones.

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Key Questions Responses Solutions School children (RED 2 – Brikama)

1. In your  Wrong perception about Western  Sensitization/awareness experiences education as a result some parents campaign what are the prefer sending their kids to the Dara  Personal comportment as a main reasons  Financial constraints. Some parents student. They should be role why some are not financially strong to send models in the society. The way parents their kids to school. they behave, dress, will count on would not  Ignorance of the long term benefits of influencing their peers to attend send their education school. children to  Some Children are not staying with  Home visit. Visit parents of kids either school their biological parents. They are not attending school to talk to or madrassa? under guidance ship and their them to send their kids to guidance might be reluctant to send school. them to school.  Involvement in social and  Some parents use their children for domestic work alongside domestic work (Child labour). schooling will motivate parents Instead of hiring someone to do the to send their kids to school. This domestic work at home, some will convince parents that their parents will prefer to use their kids. kids can go to school and still  Fear of teenage pregnancy. Some help them in their domestic parent have the fear that if they send work. their girl child to school, she might be  Invite out of school children in pregnant before completion. extracurricular activities at the  Distance to school especially in the school to motivate them to join rural area. Some communities are school. not privileged to have a school and their kids are too young to travel to a nearby school. 2. In your  Financial constraints  Mutual advice experiences  Back way to Europe. Some pupils  Sensitization what are the would prefer to abandon their school  Guidance and counselling main reasons and take the back way to Europe.  Home visit to sensitize parents why some  Indiscipline. Some pupils are so in about school activities children disciplined, that there in disciplinary  Home work groups/clubs would not activities wouldn’t allow them to  Improve student teacher complete (i.e. complete school. relationship dropout from)  Poor performance either school  Drug abuse or madrassa?  Teenage pregnancy  Fear of teenage pregnancy. Some pupils reach puberty even before they reach grade nine. In this regard, their parents would prefer to withdraw them from school for the fear being pregnant.  Early marriage  Domestic labour

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Key Questions Responses Solutions Regional Technical Advisory Committee (RED 3 – Kerewan), 1. In your  High rate of illiteracy among  Massive sensitization on the experiences parents-The may not value importance of education what are the western education, appreciate  Involvement of parents in main reasons what they know decision making why some  Cost involved –e.g. uniforms,  Increased access to school parents would books, shoes, lunch, etc. materials e.g. books for free not send their  Priority given to working on the  Working with Daras to upgrade children to farms and cattle (boys) -Domestic and transform their curriculum either school or work especially girls  Flexible school rules and madrassa?  Tacit competition created by some regulations Islamic Scholars leading to  Expanding the coverage of negative perception about school feeding programme Madrassa and conventional  Inter-sectoral collaboration schools including joint school monitoring  Breakdown of marriage – single  Strategic school mapping which parent family is demand driven especially  Value of early marriage- school Senior School will delay marriage  Increased contribution from  Health of child LGAs to cover non-fee cost of  Children with disabilities education especially for needy children  Award system for best performing schools 2. In your  Cost  Massive sensitization on the experiences  Illegal migration/family relocation importance of education. what are the  Distance to school-parents’ Involvement of parents in main reasons difficulty to get their children decision making why some hosted especially those coming  Increased access to school children would from other communities where materials e.g. books for free not complete schools do not exist at all or there  Flexible school rules and (i.e. dropout is absence of one school level regulations from) either  Child marriage and Child  Expanding the coverage of school or pregnancy school feeding programme madrassa?  Basic satisfaction with basic  Inter-sectoral collaboration education and preference for including joint school monitoring quick return economic activities  Strategic school mapping which  Low performance of the child over is demand driven especially a long period Senior School  Peer influence –boys and girls  Increased contribution from  Break of marriage-single parent LGAs to cover non-fee cost of  Rigid school rules and education especially for needy requirements children  Ineffective school management  Award system for best and conducive environment to performing schools keep children in school  Home visits  Disaster affected families and  Improve school facilities to children may lead to relocation to create more opportunities for all places where school is not children especially those at risk accessible of dropping out  Health  Improve school health services  Disabilities  Develop and strengthen re-entry programme for drop outs  Create awareness on the law against child marriage and child pregnancy

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Key Questions Responses Solutions

Community members and Parents (RED 4 – Mansakonko),

1. In your  Lack of knowledge or ignorance  Sensitization by parents on experiences about the value of education parents what are the  Carelessness and limited earning  Monitoring of their children main reasons power of parents  Frequent school visits by parents why some  Financial constraints especially in  Attitudinal change by parents parents would the Madrassa where there is still towards the significant of not send their high cost of education western education. children to either  Distance to school school or  Lack of interest by guardians to madrassa? send their adopted children to school especially when their parents are not alive  Lack of interest by children themselves  Use them for economic gains (especially the girl child who are frequently exposed to men for money  Domestic work  2. In your  Ignorance about the future  Sensitization by parents on experiences benefits of education parents what are the  Lack of means by parents  Monitoring of their children main reasons especially in the madrassa where  Frequent school visits by parents why some fees are still charged  Attitudinal change by parents children would  Lack of corporal punishment has towards the significant of not complete increased lack of fear in the western education. (i.e. dropout students from) either  Peer influence especially if the school or child moves with kids from madrassa? wealthy background they might be tempted to adopt different life style  Drug abuse  Social life that always lead to teenage pregnancy  Social network (mobile, video clubs especially in terms of football) .

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Key Questions Responses Solutions

Out-of-school children (RED 5 – Janjanbureh) and School

1. In your  Distance to school  More sensitization experiences  Preference of type of school  Support families with cost of what are the based on parent’s experience education main reasons  Cost of education  Parents should enforce school why some  Negative perception about attendance parents would conventional school  Greater engagement of parents not send their  Migration-backway on the importance of education children to  Provide more textbooks either school or  Children should devote more madrassa? time to their books and not to follow bad peers  Reduce truancy, following tourists and other bad habits (e.g. smoking)  Schedule domestic chores to avoid absenteeism  2. In your  Single parent – mother cannot  Support families with cost of experiences afford, doing auto mechanics education what are the  Cost – parent cannot afford fees  Parents should enforce school main reasons  Death of father attendance why some  Preference of farming over  Greater engagement of parents children would school, not influence by parents to on the importance of education not complete leave, still farmer/migrant worker  Provide more textbooks (i.e. dropout on farms, child is less than 20  Children should devote more from) either years time to their books and not to school or  Low performance, follow bad peers madrassa?  Marriage and teenage pregnancy  Reduce truancy, following

 Left due to pregnancy, tourists and other bad habits  Ill health and poverty (e.g. smoking)  G9 – Domestic work, after a while  Schedule domestic chores to got married avoid absenteeism  Truancy, now doing business  Distance to school  Low self-esteem due to poverty, not having right uniforms 

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Key Questions Responses Solutions

Management Committees and Mothers Clubs (RED 6 – Basse)

1. In your  In families where there are few hands work on  Sensitization experiences farms, children may not be enrolled at school targeting individual what are the  Some non-Gambians whose children are families main reasons born in Gambia but the children cannot enter  Strengthen Mothers’ why some school because they don’t have birth Clubs and SMCs parents would certificates through training not send their  Despite the School Improvement Grant (SIG),  School feeding children to many parents still belief that education is still either school or costly as before madrassa?  Falling standards/quality- children are not adequately literate or numerate  No employment opportunities therefore school is not important, given more preference to travel abroad  Previous experience of children sent to school but had turn out to disappointment i.e. first generation school goers were totally disconnected with the extended family  Parents’ perception that they own the children and have the right to send their children to school or not-ignorance  Parents not optimistic about their children’s chances of continuing to secondary therefore do not start at all  School management and dedication of teachers to duty and mode of transportation 2. In your  Child marriage and Child pregnancy  Reduce child experiences  Parents and school are not adequately marriage what are the sharing information about children’s  Strengthening main reasons attendance and performance Mothers’ Clubs and why some  Some non-Gambians returning to their native SMCs through children would country after starting school training for not complete  Backway-influenced and supported by monitoring truancy (i.e. dropout parents. Apparently attractive because of and performance from) either anecdotal evidence of success  ECD- School feeding school or  Distance to secondary school  Skills training to madrassa?  Domestic work e.g. laundry, sweeping could reduce backway lead to long absenteeism and eventually migration dropping out  Increase  Truancy- parents paying less attention to the communication school attendance and performance of their between school and children parents to monitor  Farm work truancy and  Repeated low performance performance

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ANNEX B

Enrolment and Repeaters of 2014, 2015 and 2016 of LBE, UBE and SSE

Grades 2014 2015 2016 Femal Male Total Femal Male Total Femal Male Total e e e Grade 1 32,977 32,01 64,988 34,71 33,431 68,142 34,837 33,58 68,421 1 1 4 Repeaters 1,650 1,626 3,276 2,312 2,465 4,777 2,528 2,806 5,334 Grade 2 27,090 26,06 53,154 30,12 28,325 58,450 31,236 29,62 60,861 4 5 5 Repeaters 1,121 1,117 2,238 2,049 2,150 4,199 1,942 2,073 4,015 Grade 3 23,085 22,11 45,195 25,19 23,880 49,072 28,519 26,47 54,992 0 2 3 Repeaters 766 795 1,561 1,168 1,217 2,385 1,232 1,334 2,566 Grade 4 21,100 20,43 41,534 22,77 21,555 44,329 24,467 23,22 47,689 4 4 2 Repeaters 626 640 1,266 1,012 1,074 2,086 951 1,074 2,025 Grade 5 18,638 17,63 36,276 19,64 19,068 38,717 20,887 19,48 40,367 8 9 0 Repeaters 425 469 894 531 557 1,088 573 658 1,231 Grade 6 17,179 16,61 33,792 17,86 16,924 34,793 18,690 17,70 36,399 3 9 9 Repeaters 458 510 968 487 507 994 434 433 867 Total 140,06 134,8 274,93 150,3 143,183 293,50 158,63 150,0 308,72 enrolment/ 9 70 9 20 7,970 3 6 93 9 Repeaters 5,046 5,157 10,203 7,559 R15,52 7,660 8,378 16,038 9 UBE Grade 7 15,611 14,92 30,535 16,20 15,544 31,747 16,878 15,93 32,811 4 3 3 Repeaters 375 334 709 631 504 1,135 455 437 892 Grade 8 14,399 14,18 28,584 14,85 14,437 29,288 15,335 14,65 30,009 5 1 6 Repeaters 513 486 999 925 759 1,684 505 467 972 Grade 9 14,136 14,13 28,272 14,56 14,578 29,141 14,323 13,69 28,018 6 3 5 Repeaters 618 647 1,265 590 673 1,263 426 501 927 Total 44,146 43,24 87,391 45,61 44,559 90,176 46,554 44,28 90,838 Enrolment R1,506 5 R2,973 7 R1,936 R4,082 R1,386 4 R2,79 / R1,46 R2,14 R1,40 1 Repeaters 7 6 5

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SSE Grade 10 9,452 9,605 19,057 9,956 9,688 19644 11,398 10,721 22,119 Repeaters 436 390 826 597 513 1,189 635 486 1,121 Grade 11 8,013 8,405 16,418 8,679 8,719 17,398 9,458 9,073 18,531 Repeaters 313 355 668 600 527 1,127 592 511 1,103 Grade 12 6,541 7,097 13,638 6,978 7,205 14,183 7,773 7,578 15,351 Repeaters 108 132 240 109 149 258 113 142 255 Total 24,00 25,10 49,113 25,613 25,612 51,225 28,629 27,372 56,001 Enrolment 6 7 1,734 1,306 1,189 R2,495 R1,340 R1,139 R2,47 / R857 R877 9 Repeaters Grand 208,2 203,2 411,44 221,55 213,35 434,90 233,81 221,74 455,56 Total 21 22 3 0 4 4 9 9 8 R7,40 R7,50 R14,91 R11,01 R11,09 R22,10 R10,38 R10,92 R21,3 9 1 0 1 5 6 6 2 08

Table compiled from the data from Annual Year Books 2013/2014, 2014/2015 and 2015/2016

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ANNEX C Inception Report: National Study on Out-of-School Children in The Gambia

Prepared by:

Muhammad Jamshed Khan

Banjul,

Republic of the Gambia

September 2016

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Table of contents

Section 1: Introduction and background ...... 106

Section 2: Strategy for conducting OOSCI Study ...... 109

Section 3: Work Plan and Timelines ...... 113

Section 4: Role and Responsibilities of the Persons Associated with this Study ...... 115

Annex A: People met ...... 116

Annex B: Focused Group Discussion – OOSCI study Gambia ...... 117

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Map of Gambia Introduction and back ground

Section 1:

Introduction and background

The Republic of Gambia is the smallest country in the Africa Continent bordered on three sides; North, East and South by the Republic of Senegal and on the West by the Atlantic Ocean. The total area of the country is 11,300 square kilometers; with a land area of 10,120 square km and water as 1,180 square km. The coastline area is spread over 80 km. The total size of population according to the 2013 population Census is 1,882,450 persons showing an increase of 5.6 % over the projected figures for the year 2013 as 1,783,424. This may be attributed to different factors. On the average the population growth rate during the inter- census period 2003-2013 has been recorded as 3.3%. Of the total population the male has a share of 930,699 while the female has 951,751 with 98:100 ratio of male to female. The population density has accordingly grown from 127 persons per square kilometer in 2003 to 176 persons per square kilometer in 2013.

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TheD2: Government Children of theprimary Gambia school shows age awho strong are notcommitment in primary to or the secondary development school of education, exhibited by constantly increasing the budget allocation to education as a percentage of total  government D3: Children expenditure, of lower however secondary the school major agechunk who of are this not allocation in primary goes or secondary to the committed school expenditure like salaries and utilities and less is left for the operational activities. With the  D4: Children who are in primary school but at risk of dropping out limited resources available and many other sectors requiring considerable spending, the government D5: Children is still who spending are in lower over secondary4% of the school GDP but on at riskeducation, of dropping which out shows a firm commitment of the government to the development of education sector (ESP 2014-2022 page 6).The During OOSCI the Operationalyear 2001-2012 Manual the providesgovernment complete expenditure guidance on educationto carry out has the increased study. The from 16.8%profiles to of20.07% excluded (MOBSE children 17.5% will be and developed MOHERST to reflect 2.57%. the (ESP following: 2014 -2022 page 6)

In1. terms How of MDG’smany children education are relatedout of school? goals and EFA goals, considerable progress has been shown by the Gambia, though still a lot has to be done. The increase in GER and NER, the development2. Which childrenof ECD are programmes out of school? and recognition of Madrassa as alternative route to education are the efforts in this direction. In spite of all these gains the number of children who 3. Which children are at risk of dropout? are still out of school may be very high as indicated in the earlier reports. The Gambia Country Status4. WhereReport are2010 these (CSR children 2010) disaggregating estimated the data proportion at national of children and regional in the levels? basic education age cohort (7-15 years) who were out of school was 31.6% including a considerable proportion ofFor 29.1% this ofstudy children the available who have data never from attended GBoS, EMIS,school. Househ In 2013old a Surveys similar studyreports conducted and other in twoavailable regions reports of Gambia will be (the used Central and Riverthe gaps and in Upper data willRiver be Region) covered gave through an alarmingqualitative num databer ofcollection. 50% children to be out of school.

Objectives The Study of on the Out study-of-School Children Gambia initially looks like a simple study:

Similar1. Tostudies determine have the been number carried of childrenout in many who arecountries out of school under inthe Gambia; framework (Operational Manual) developed by UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) and UNICEF. The Ministry of 2. To find out the major causes of being out of school; Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) with support from UNICEF Gambia has desired to conduct3. To this recommend study under practicable the Operational solutions Manual for bringing 2015. them The in study to schools. will focus on the different categories of out of school children in terms of their exposure to education. This will include theBut children in fact itwho is not never that simple,attended it involvesschools aand thorough those whoanalysis dropped of the out available of school data, for comparison any reason. Theof theOut different-of-School data Children sources Initiative available (OOSCI) and selecting Operational the latest Manual and focusesreliable dataon the source following for fiveanalysis. Dimensions Since ofthe Exclusion required calledinformation 5DE: is not available from one source of information and cross checking with all sources, and picking one piece of information from one source, and  otherD1: piecesChildren from of other pre -sourcesprimary willschool be frequentlyage who arerequired not in in pre this-primary type of orstudy. primary school

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January 2017 107 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

D2: Children of primary school age who are not in primary or secondary school

 D3: Children of lower secondary school age who are not in primary or secondary school

 D4: Children who are in primary school but at risk of dropping out

 D5: Children who are in lower secondary school but at risk of dropping out

The OOSCI Operational Manual provides complete guidance to carry out the study. The profiles of excluded children will be developed to reflect the following:

1. How many children are out of school?

2. Which children are out of school?

3. Which children are at risk of dropout?

4. Where are these children disaggregating data at national and regional levels?

For this study the available data from GBoS, EMIS, Household Surveys reports and other available reports will be used and the gaps in data will be covered through qualitative data collection.

The Study on Out-of-School Children Gambia initially looks like a simple study:

1. To determine the number of children who are out of school in Gambia;

2. To find out the major causes of being out of school;

3. To recommend practicable solutions for bringing them in to schools.

But in fact it is not that simple, it involves a thorough analysis of the available data, comparison of the different data sources available and selecting the latest and reliable data source for analysis. Since the required information is not available from one source of information and cross checking with all sources, and picking one piece of information from one source, and other pieces from other sources will be frequently required in this type of study.

January 2017 108 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Section 2: Strategy for conducting OOSCI Study

The strategy for conducting OOSCI study will include depending mostly on the secondary data available in different offices. The following secondary data and reports have been obtained to be reviewed and used in analysis and drafting the report:

 Population census report 2013  Population census revised estimates and projections 2003-2020 at national and regional levels  EMIS latest data - Yearbook 2015 and 2016  Country Status Report 2010  Integrated Household Survey Report 2010  Gambia, Demographic and Health Survey, 2013  Gambia MICS 2010  Gambia Education Sector Plan 2014-2022  Gambia Education Policy 2004-2015  UNESCO UIS Operational Manual and OOSCI Flyer  Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Directorate of Planning, HMIS 2016  MDG Status Report 2014—Final Report Gambia, Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs  Country studies on OOSCI  Earlier study on OOSC study in selected regions 2013

Apart from the review of documents during the visit to Gambia a series of interviews were held with the main stakeholders to get further insight on the study. The list of the persons met may be seen at Annex A.

Apart from collecting the secondary data from the different sources, the primary data and information were also collected from the concerned offices and officers. These are important for cross checking with the available resources. Some qualitative data collection will be made through Focus Group Discussions (FGDs). Six FGDs will be conducted in all; one each for Teachers, School Children, Regional Technical Advisory Committee Members, Community Members/Parents, Out-of-School-Children and SMC & Mothers’ Club.

The questions which are to be asked from these FGDs mainly focus on the barriers to schooling of the out-of-school-children to schools and madrassa, the reasons for dropouts, measures to be taken to attract children to schools and madrassas and reducing dropouts. The responses from different groups will be obtained in a prioritized form. This will help in providing additional support to the primary data collected through In-depth Interviews from the key informants and also the secondary data from the documents. The FGDs will be conducted one in each of the following regions:

January 2017 109 The The Gambia OOSCIOOSCI StudyStudy ReportReport

D2: Children of primary school age who are not in primary or secondary school RED1 Kanifing for the Teachers  RED D3: 2 Brikama Children for of the lower School secondary Children school age who are not in primary or secondary school  RED D4: 3 Kerewan Children for who the aremembers in primary of Regional school but Technical at risk of Advisory dropping committee out

RED D5: 4 Mansakonko Children who for are the inCommunity lower secondary Member school and Parentsbut at risk of dropping out

REDThe 5OOSCI Janjabureh Operational for the Manualout of School provides Children complete guidance to carry out the study. The profiles of excluded children will be developed to reflect the following: RED 6 Basse for School Management committee & Mothers’ club 1. How many children are out of school? The FGDs will be conducted during the month of October and findings and report will be sent 2. Which children are out of school? through e-mail on completion. The key questions asked to different groups are given in Annex B. 3. Which children are at risk of dropout?

The4. analysisWhere ofare secondary these children and primarydisaggregating data will data be doneat national keeping and in regional view the levels? five dimensions of exclusion being central to the OOSCI approach. These dimensions are the following: For this study the available data from GBoS, EMIS, Household Surveys reports and other 1.available Children reports of pre will-primary be used school and the age gaps who in ar datae not will pre be-primary covered or primarythrough school;qualitative data collection. 2. Children of primary school age who are not in primary or secondary school; The Study on Out-of-School Children Gambia initially looks like a simple study: 3. Children of lower secondary school age who are not in primary or secondary school; 1. To determine the number of children who are out of school in Gambia; 4. Children who are in primary school but at risk of dropping out; 2. To find out the major causes of being out of school; 5. Children who are in lower secondary school but at risk of dropping out 3. To recommend practicable solutions for bringing them in to schools. The GBoS data on population by age will be used to find out the number of males and females inBut the in different fact it is notage that brackets simple, in it different involves regions. a thorough Since analysis the final of the report available of OOSCI data, willcomparison be ready byof Januarythe different 2017 data the sourcesdata used available in analysis and selectingshould be the the latest one andprojected reliable till data2016 source using forthe latestanalysis. growth Since rate the as required determined information by the Household is not available Survey. from The one EMIS source data of will information also be put and in tocross eight checking administrative with all regions sources, instead and picking of the onecurrent piece six of educati informationonal regions from one for source, the sake and of comparison.other pieces Thefrom three other dimensions, sources will 1be-3 frequentlywill be calculated required using in this the type EMIS of study. data by grade, age, gender and region. For Dimension 4 and 5, the statistical tools sent by UIS will be tried and for the sake of comparison the past trend of dropout can also be seen.

In Gambia the entry age at the primary level is 7-12 years, lower secondary level is 13-15 years, upper secondary level is 16-18 years and the tertiary education level is 19-22 years. The pre-primary level is age 3 – 6 years. These age brackets will be taken in to account while calculating the current right age (net enrolment) for the different levels.

The general structure of the report will include the following:

Title cover

Contents

Preface

January 2017 110108 January 2017 110 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

List of abbreviations

Executive summary

Chapter 1: Introduction

● Overview of the global OOSCI

● Country’s education profile

● Methodology, data sources and quality

Chapter 2: Profiles of excluded children

● Five dimensions of excluded children ● Dimension 1-5 ● Key profiles of excluded children ● Analytical summary

Chapter 3: Barrier and policies

● Analytical summary

Chapter 4: Conclusion

● Key profiles, barriers and policy actions recommendation ● References

Annexes

The documents so far obtained from different sources and the data collected will be sufficient for the report writing on OOSCI, however in case of certain clarification or additional data requirement the Technical Group may be approached to provide. An in-depth analysis of identifying barriers to schooling and further policy recommendations to address the barriers would be possible with the available data.

The report based on thorough analysis of data will have the answers to the following questions?

 How many children are out of school at national and regional levels?  Which children are out of school?  Which children are at risk?  Where are the children- disaggregating data at national and regional levels?  What barriers and bottlenecks exist for different categories of OOSC?

January 2017 111 TheThe Gambia Gambia OOSCI OOSCI Study Study Report Report

D2: WhatChildren factors of primaryput children school in schoolage who at arerisk notof beingin primary excluded? or secondary school

 D3:What Children demand, of lower supply, secondary quality schooland enabling age who environmental are not in primary factors or secondaryare linked school to the barriers and bottlenecks?  D4: Children who are in primary school but at risk of dropping out  What education policies and strategies should be implemented by different stakeholders  D5:to addressChildren the who barriers are in andlower bottlenecks secondary experiencedschool but at by risk excluded of dropping children? out  What funding mechanism and social protection systems should be in place to enable all The OOSCIexcluded Operational children to Manual realize theirprovides right completeto access guidanceeducation? to carry out the study. The profiles of excluded children will be developed to reflect the following:

1. How many children are out of school?

2. Which children are out of school?

3. Which children are at risk of dropout?

4. Where are these children disaggregating data at national and regional levels?

For this study the available data from GBoS, EMIS, Household Surveys reports and other available reports will be used and the gaps in data will be covered through qualitative data collection.

The Study on Out-of-School Children Gambia initially looks like a simple study:

1. To determine the number of children who are out of school in Gambia;

2. To find out the major causes of being out of school;

3. To recommend practicable solutions for bringing them in to schools.

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Section 3:

Work Plan and Timelines

The study started in late August 2016 and is to be completed by January 31, 2017 as per the agreement. The In-depth Interviews with the key informants have been completed by the consultant during the first two weeks stay in Gambia. The visit to the field, though initially planned to see some Daras in operation, could not be arranged due to the holidays’ season and Morabou of Daras are reported to be away and not available in Daras. Schools were also closed during this period. The FGDs will be conducted in the month of October and the report on findings will be communicated either by the end of October or early November. The first draft of the report will be submitted in early January 2017, so that some time is given to the Technical Group for review. After receiving the feedback from the Technical Group the revised final report will be sent to the UNICEF before Jan 31, 2017. A tentative work plan for this study is given as under:

Weeks Activities \ 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 Weeks 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 Review of documents Preparation of work plan Meetings with stakeholders to specify scope Review of related policies Data collection on the current situation Meetings with different stakeholders Meetings with the technical group Skype meeting with UIS Dakar & UNICEF Dakar Field visit Inception report with work plan Home based data collection and analysis FGDs to be conducted in R 1-6

January 2017 113 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

FGDs reports with the responses to the key questions to be sent through e-mail Analysis of FGDs finding and recommendation s Writing the profile chapter Further analysis of data Writing the barriers and policy chapter First draft of report preparation Submission of first draft for comments Comments from the technical group and steering committee received Further work in finalising report Submitting the final draft Presentation of the final report

Work Plan for Out-of-school-children study in Gambia

January 2017 114 TheThe Gambia Gambia OOSCI OOSCI Study Study Report Report

SectionD2: Children of4: primary school age who are not in primary or secondary school  D3: Children of lower secondary school age who are not in primary or secondary school

Role D4:and ResponsibilitiesChildren who are in of primary the Persons school butAssociated at risk of dropping with this out Study

 D5: Children who are in lower secondary school but at risk of dropping out For the completion of the OOSCI study a close coordination of the following three will be required:The OOSCI Operational Manual provides complete guidance to carry out the study. The profiles of excluded children will be developed to reflect the following: 1. Consultant; to obtain all the relevant data and information from the different stakeholders, 1. analyseHow many the childrendata and are prepare out of school?report. The draft report will be made available to UNICEF Gambia and the Technical Group in late November to early December 2016. On receipt 2. Which children are out of school? of the feedback from the Technical Group, and a validation of the draft report, the revised 3. finalWhich report children must are be atsent risk before of dropout? the end of January 2017.

2.4. UNICEFWhere are to thesecoordinate children the disaggregating activities, expedite data at nationalthe provision and regional of data levels? or information if required during analysis or formulating recommendations, to send requests to the For individualsthis study the or organisationsavailable data iffrom some GBoS, specific EMIS, information Househ oldor dataSurveys is required, reports andand manageother availablethe consultancy. reports will be used and the gaps in data will be covered through qualitative data collection. 3. Technical Group to provide the data or information on urgent basis when required or Themay Study arrange on Out it-of from-School other Children sources Gambia if required. initially To looks conduct like athe simple Focus study: Group Discussions in the different regions as agreed, and ensure the dispatch of the findings and 1. To determine the number of children who are out of school in Gambia; recommendations to the UNICEF Gambia for onward communication to the consultant. 2. TheTo findTechnical out the Groupmajor causesmay also of beingensure out to of provide school; feedback on the draft report within a week’s time. 3. To recommend practicable solutions for bringing them in to schools.

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January 2017 115 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Annex A

People met

UNICEF Gambia

 Ms. Sara Beysolow Nyanti, Resident Representative  Mr. Rupert Leighton, Deputy Representative  Mr. Nuha Jatta, Education Specialist  Mr. Alpha Ibrahim Cisse, Operations Manager

UNESCO Institute of Statistics and UNICEF WCARO, Senegal (Through Skype)

 Mr. Marc Bernal, UNESCO Institute of Statistics, Dakar  Ms. Inge Vervloesen, Education Specialist, UNICEF WCARO

MOBSE

 Mr. Muhammed B S Jallow, Deputy Permanent Secretary (Programmes)  Mr. Alpha Bah, System Analyst, EMIS  Mr. Basiru Mbenga, Principal Education Officer  Mr. Pa Gumbo Saine, Senior Education Officer (School Feeding Programme)  Ms. Anna Nancy Mendy, Principal Education Officer (Special Education)  Mr. Mohammed Badjan, Principal Education Officer, Madrassa Education Gambia Bureau of Statistics

 Mr. Baba Suwareh, Director  Mr. Momodou Lamin Cham, Director Ministry of Health and Social Welfare

 Mr. Momodou Njie, Director Health Promotion and Education  Ms. Fanta Bai-Secka, Director, Department of Social Welfare Ministry of Trade, Industry, regional Integration and Employment

 Mr. Lamin Dampha, Deputy Permanent Secretary Civil Society

● Mr. Phoday Kebbeh, Director, ISRA

January 2017 116 TheThe GambiaGambia OOSCI OOSCI Study Study Report Report

D2: Children of primary school age who are not in primary or secondary schoolAnnex B Focused D3: Children Group Discussion of lower secondary – OOSCI school study age Gambia who are not in primary or secondary school

 Region/VenueD4: Children whoTarget are Group in primary school but at riskKey of Questions dropping out RED 1 Teachers (10) Teachers group:  (Kanifing)D5: Children who are in lower secondary school but at risk of dropping out  In your experiences what are the main The OOSCI Operational Manual providesreasons complete why guidance some parents to carry woul out dthe not study. The profiles of excluded children will be developedsend totheir reflect children the fol tolowing: either school or madrassa?  1. How many children are out of school? In your experiences what are the main reasons why some children would not complete (i.e. dropout from) either school 2. Which children are out of school? or madrassa? (Facilitator: Please let participants rank 3. Which children are at risk of dropout? the reasons above before proceeding)

4. Where are these children disaggregating data at national and regional levels?  What could teachers do to increase the number of children attending school or For this study the available data from GBoS, EMIS, Household Surveys reports and other Madrassa? available reports will be used and the gapsWhat in coulddata willteachers be covered do to through reduce qualitative the data collection. number of children dropping out from school or Madrassa? The Study on Out-of-School Children Gambia initially looks like a simple study: RED 2 School children School children: 1.(Brikama) To determine (10) the number of children who are out of school in Gambia; In your experiences what are the main 2. To find out the major causes of reasonsbeing out why of school; some parents would not send their children to either school or madrassa? 3. To recommend practicable solutions In foryour bringing experiences them in towhat schools. are the main reasons why some children would not But in fact it is not that simple, it involves acomplete thorough (i.e. analysis dropout of the from) available either schooldata, comparison of the different data sources available andor madrassa? selecting the latest and reliable data source for analysis. Since the required information is not available from one source of information and cross checking with all sources, and( Facipickinglitator: one piecePlease of informationlet participants from onerank source, and other pieces from other sources will bethe frequently reasons requiredabove before in this proceedingtype of study.)

 What could other children do to increase the number of children attending school or Madrassa?  What could other children do to reduce the number of children dropping out from school or Madrassa?

RED 3 Regional Regional Technical Advisory Committee: (Kerewan) Technical In your experiences what are the main Advisory reasons why some parents would not send Committee their children to either school or madrassa? (TAC) (10)  In your experiences what are the main reasons why some children would not complete (i.e. dropout from) either school or madrassa?

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Region/Venue Target Group Key Questions (Facilitator: Please let participants rank the Reasons above before proceeding)

 What could local authorities do to increase the number of children attending school or Madrassa?  What could local authorities do to reduce the number of children dropping out from school or Madrassa?

RED 4 Community Parents and Community members: (Mansakonko) members/  In your experiences what are the main parents (10) reasons why some parents would not send their children to either school or madrassa?  In your experiences what are the main reasons why some children would not complete (i.e. dropout from) either school or madrassa? (Facilitator: Please let participants rank the reasons above before proceeding)

 What could parents and community members do to increase the number of children attending school or Madrassa?  What could parents and community members do to reduce the number of children dropping out from school or Madrassa?

RED 5 Out-of-school Out of school children: (Janjanbureh) children (10)  In your experiences/views what are the main reasons why some parents would not send their children to either school or madrassa?  In your experiences what are the main reasons why some children would not complete (i.e. dropout from) either school or madrassa? (Facilitator: Please let participants rank the reasons above before proceeding)

 What could out-of-school children (i.e. children like you) do to increase the number of children attending school or Madrassa?  What could out-of-school children (i.e. children like you) do to reduce the number of children dropping out of school or Madrassa?

January 2017 118 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Region/Venue Target Group Key Questions RED 6 School SMC and Mothers Clubs: (Basse) Management  In your experiences what are the main Committees reasons why some parents would not and Mothers send their children to either school or Clubs (10) madrassa?  In your experiences what are the main reasons why some children would not complete (i.e. dropout from) either school or madrassa? (Facilitator: Please let participants rank the reasons above before proceeding)

 What could School Management Committees and Mothers Clubs do to increase the number of children attending school or Madrassa?  What could School Management Committees and Mothers Clubs do to reduce the number of children dropping out of school or Madrassa?

January 2017 119 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

ANNEX D Figures

250,000 223,939

200,000

150,000

88,523 100,000 83,059

45,482 44,437 50,000 3,740 36,029 26,537 28,597 1,640 18,649 9,764 11,667 18,371 8,616 15,093 4,964 12,178 9,692 2,591 3,856 4,339 2,628 6,156 842 2,042 1,367 0

Projected population of age 3-6 in 2016 MF 3-6 year old Enrolment in ECD/ECE centres Female enrolment

Percent children enrolled in ECD by LGA 50 44 45 43 43 41 40 40

35 33 33

25 22

0 Banjul Kaninfing Brikama Mansakonko Kerewan Kuntaur Janjanbureh Basse

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PROJECTED POPULATION OF AGE 7-12 IN THE YEAR 2016 AND ENROLMENT IN LBE BY LGA

Banjul Kaninfing Brikama Mansakonko Kerewan Kuntaur Janjanbureh Basse

140,000 120,000 100,000 Projected population MF Enrolment in LBE, 80,000 of age 7-12, 64,092 65,427 60,000 40,000

20,000 5,271 4,902 0 Projected population of age 7-12 MF Enrolment in LBE

7-12 YEAR OLD CHILDREN PROJECTED POPULATION, ENROLLED IN LBE, UBE AND SSE AND NUMBER OF OOSC BY LGA

Population of age 7-12 MF Total 7-12 year old enrolled in LBE, UBE or SSE 7-12 year old children who are not in school 117,046 94,994 64,092 53,725 40,299 37,395 31,107 29,573 22,052 21,269 16,442 15,767 13,759 12,062 10,367 9,584 9,192 7,822 6,858 5,502 5,271 4,211 1,697 1,060

BANJUL KANIFING BRIKAMA MANSAKONKO KEREWAN KUNTAUR JANJANBUREH BASSE

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Projected population and enrolled chidren of age 3-18 years in different age brackets 350,000 315,573 308,729 300,000

250,000 223,939

200,000 158,961 158,636 156,612 150,093 145,930

150,000 133,045 114,580 109,359 100,349 90,838 73,619

100,000 72,311 67,879 65,166 56,001 51,094 49,255 46,554 44,284 28,629 50,000 27,372

0 3-6 Years/ ECD Level 1-4 7-12 years/ LBE Grade 1- 13-15 years/ UBE Grade 7- 16-18 years/ SSE Grade 10- 6 9 12

Projected population for the year 2016 Female population Male population Enrolled in school in 2016 Female enrolment Male enrolment

Population of age 3-6 and enrolment in ECD by gender and region 90,000 83,059 80,000 70,000 60,000

50,000 45,482

40,000 36,029 28,597 30,000 26,537 18,649 18,371 17,658

20,000 15,093 12,178 11,667 9,764 9,692 8,957 8,616 6,156 6,022 4,964 4,339 4,277 3,856

10,000 3,740 2,628 2,591 2,336 2,042 1,814 1,640 1,367 1,224 842 798 0 Banjul Kaninfing Brikama Mansakonko Kerewan Kuntaur Janjanbureh Basse

Projected population of age 3-6 in 2016 MF Enrolment in ECD/ECE centres Female enrolment Male enrolment

January 2017 122 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

LBE GER 120 106.7 101.2 104 103.5 101.4 97.1 98.7 99 100 92.8 93.9 95.4 90.2 89.1 91.4 89.1 91.7 88.3 86.5 87.3 87.5 85.6 80

0 Total MF % Female % Male % LBE GER

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

LBE NER

86 84.7 84 81.9 82 80.6 79.8 80 79.1 77.9 78.1 78 76.5 75.675.7 76 75.6 76 74.674.4 74.7 73.7 74 73.1 72.9

66 Total MF % Female % Male % LBE- NER

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

January 2017 123 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Population in the year 2016 Enrolment in 2016 Out of School Children 223,939 100,349

123,590

114,580 51,094 109,359 49,255 65,325 46,759 58,265 49,238 28,832 37,266 56,622 56,055 55,930 55,332 23,786

22,973 27,223 25,221 18,664 24,017 19,566 14,588 14,244 17,700 28,988 28,767 28,614 28,211 27,634 27,288 27,316 27,121 14,523 12,700 9,616 9,048 9,863 6,094 6,015 3,848 3,104 2,990 ECD age 3-6 Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 ECD age 3-6 Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 ECD age 3-6 Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 (Level 1-4) (Level 1-4) (Level 1-4) Total Girls Boys Total Girls Boys Total Girls Boys

Population of ECD age Enrolment in ECD OOSC by Level

Region

90,000 83,059 80,000 70,000 60,000

50,000 45,482 41,672 40,000 28,597 30,000 26,537 21,199 20,813 20,473 15,093 20,000 14,036 11,667 10,776 10,037 9,764 9,483 8,249 7,189 6,847 5,436 4,781 4,702 4,331 3,918 3,740 2,865 2,813

10,000 2,571 1,793 1,466 1,347 901 892 0 Banjul Kaninfing Brikama Mansakonko Kerewan Kuntaur Janjanbureh Basse

Population of age 3-6 MF Enrolment in ECD/ECE centres Female enrolment Male enrolment

Population of ECD age children by LGA and gender

January 2017 124 TheThe GambiaGambia OOSCI OOSCI Study Study Report Report

D2: Children of primary school age who are not in primary or secondary school

19,953 19,020  D3:Basse Children of lower secondary38,973 school age who are not in primary or secondary school 40,299

8,572 10,192 Janjanbureh D4: Children who are18,764 in primary school but at risk of dropping out 21,269

5,134  D5: Children6,477 who are in lower secondary school but at risk of dropping out Kuntaur 11,611 16,441

The OOSCI Operational18,404 Manual provides complete guidance to carry out the study. The 18,207 Kerewan 36,611 profiles of excluded children will be37,395 developed to reflect the following:

7,361 7,683 Mansakonko1. How many children15,044 are out of school? 13,759

57,757 2. Which children are out of school? 59,640 Brikama 117,397 117,047

3. Which children are at risk30,538 of dropout? 34,889 Kaninfing 65,427 64,092 4. Where are these children disaggregating data at national and regional levels? 2,374 2,528 Banjul 4,902 For this study the5,271 available data from GBoS, EMIS, Household Surveys reports and other available reports0 will 20,000be used and40,000 the gaps60,000 in data will80,000 be covered100,000 through120,000 qualitative140,000 data

collection. Male enrolment Female enrolment MF Enrolment in LBE Population of age 7-12

The Study on Out-of-School Children Gambia initially looks like a simple study: Population of LBE age children by LGA and gender 1. To determine the number of children who are out of school in Gambia;

932. To find out the major causes of being out of school; 91.9 92 91.5 3. To recommend practicable91.1 solutions91.2 for bringing them in to schools.91.1 91 90.6 90.5 89.9 90But in fact89.6 it is not that simple, it involves a thorough analysis89.5 of the available data, comparison of the different data89 sources available and selecting the latest and reliable data source for 89 88.6 88.5 analysis. Since the required information is not available from one source of information and 88 cross checking with all sources, and picking one piece of information87.1 from one source, and 87other pieces from other sources will be frequently required in this type of study. 86

85 84 Female Male

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Transition rate from lower basic education to Upper basic education

January 2017 125108

January 2017 125 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

70 68.9 69 68.2 68.2 68.2 68.3 68 67.6 67.3 66.9 67 66.7 66.8 66.2 65.9 66 65.6 65.5 65 64 63 Female Male

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

GER UBE from 2010 -2016

60,000 54,126

50,000

40,000 36,901 29,638 30,000 25,896 18,663 18,635

20,000 17,293 13,559 9,836 9,176 7,602

10,000 6,363 6,189 4,579 4,401 4,164 2,796 2,542 2,514 2,438 2,142 1,597 1,480 833 0 Banjul Kaninfing Brikama Mansakonko Kerewan Kuntaur Janjanbureh Basse

Population of age 13-15 MF Enrolment in UBE Female enrolment

UBE Age 13-15 population and enrolment by gender and by LGA

UBE GER UBE-NER

120 42 41.1 100 68.9 68.3 68.2 68.2 68 67.6 67.3 66.9 66.8 66.7 66.2 65.9 65.6 80 65.5 40 60 38 36.98 40 UBE-NER 20 36 0 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 34 Female Male Female Male

January 2017 126 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Population of Age 13-15 UBE Grade 7-9 Age 13-15

Boys, 72,311 Boys, 44,284 Girls, 73,619 Girls, 46,554

SSESSE-NER GER 28.53 120 30 23.52 100 80 20 44.1 43.9 43.2 42.6 41.1

60 40.5 39.2 39.1 37.7 37.4 36.9 33.5

10 32.2 40 30.6 20 0 0 Female Male 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 FemaleSSE-NERMale

60,000 49,346 50,000

40,000

30,000 27,022 20,267

20,000 16,990 15,766 15,755 10,567 9,700 8,967 7,952 7,803

10,000 6,932 5,929 5,801 4,692 3,831 3,147 2,782 2,565 2,221 2,127 2,083 1,940 1,939 1,748 1,648 1,019 1,006 933 921 877 771 0 Banjul Kaninfing Brikama Mansakonko Kerewan Kuntaur Janjanbureh Basse Population of age 16-18 MF Enrolment in SSE Female enrolment Male enrolment

Projected population of age 16-18 in the year 2016 and enrolment in SSE by gender and LGA in the year 2016

January 2017 127 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Population of Age 16-18 SSE Grade 10-12 Enrolment Age 16-18

Boys, Boys, 65,166 Girls, Girls, 67,879 27,372 28,629

Type and number of special needs children in schools

ECD LBE UBE SSE 1,857

1,009 835 576 437 468 466 261 280 291 184 208 241 239 167 142 145 86 99 38 59 69 25 5

Vision Hearing Speaking Physical Mental Others

January 2017 128 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Showing number of special needs children by level and type of disability

5,654 Basse 1,412 7,066

2,939 Janjanbureh 790 3,729

2,358 Kuntaur 525 2,883

4,724 Kerewan 1,833 6,557

1,555 Mansakonko 857 2,412

13,870 Brikama 6,653 20,523

6,232 Kanifing 5,006 11,238

604 Banjul 320 924

0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000

6 year old children who are not in school Total 6 year old enrolled in ECD and LBE Population of age 6 MF

Population of 6 yr old children, number enrolled and OOSC by LGA

Percentage of 6 year old children out of school

90 81.79 78.81 80.02 80 72.04 67.37 67.58 70 64.47 60 55.45 50 40 30 20 10 0

Percentage of 6 year old children out of school

January 2017 129 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

Showing percentage of 6 year old children not in school by LGA

7,846 Basse 10,789 18,635 4,615 Janjanbureh 5,221 9,836 4,499 Kuntaur 3,103 7,602 5,978 Kerewan 11,315 17,293 1,331 Mansakonko 5,032 6,363 12,131 Brikama 41,994 54,125 2,711 Kanifing 26,927 29,638 76 Banjul 2,362 2,438

0 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000 50,000 60,000 13-15 year old children who are not in school Total 13-15 year old enrolled in UBE, LBE or SSE Population of age 13-15 MF

13-15 Year children not in school, number enrolled and population of age 13-15 by LGA

LBE Repeaters by grade in 2014- 2016

2013-14 2014-15 2015-16

5,334 4,777

4,199 4,015

3,276

2,566 2,385 2,238 2,086 2,025 1,561 1,266 1,088 1,231 894 968 994 867

Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6

January 2017 130 The Gambia OOSCI Study Report

LBE Enrolment by grade by year

36,399 Grade 6 34,793 33,792

40,367 Grade 5 38,717 36,276

47,689 Grade 4 44,329 41,534

54,992 Grade 3 49,072 45,195

60,861 Grade 2 58,450 53,154

68,421 Grade 1 68,142 64,988

0 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000 50,000 60,000 70,000 80,000

2015-16 MF 2014-15 MF 2013-14 MF

Number of dropouts before the last grade

2014 MF 2015 MF

17,000 14,501

9,981

7,324 6,820 5,457 4,334 3,479 1,4322,018

Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5

January 2017 131