Bukola Olatunji
7 October 2008
column
Lagos — In the Spirit of the World Teachers' Day, this column celebrates a teacher who has made her mark and continues to wax strong in her chosen profession. A Gambian and a product of Nigeria's Bayero University, Kano, Mrs. Ann-Therese Ndong-Jatta, who is Director of UNESCO's Regional Bureau for Education in Africa (BREDA) in Dakar, Senegal, can be said to have 'seen it all'.
The mother of four started as an unqualified teacher after her Sixth Form at the Gambia High School in 1976, because her country had no university at that time. She went on (between 1980 and 2008) to be a Graduate Teacher, Principal of a High School, Deputy Chief Education Officer, Director of Secondary and Tertiary Education, Minister of Education for five years, Director of Basic Education at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris from September 2004 and now Director of UNESCO/BREDA early this year.
In between all of these, she was a Trainer of Education Managers and Heads of School between 1986 and 1991, Member of the National Vocational and Technical Education Council from 1986-90, Trainer of Trainers for Family Life Education from 1987 to 1993, Member of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) National Committee from 1988 to 90, and later, Chairperson of the Committee from 1996 to 1999.
She also co-ordinated her country's Education Sector Policy Review and Formulation of the Master Plan between 1996 and 2003, pioneered technical and vocational education at the high school level in her country and played a major role in the establishment of The Gambia's first university.
Going back to the beginning, the unqualified teaching experience, Mrs. Ndong-Jatta told THISDAY at a recent international conference that, "I had been a sports person, so my school (St. Joseph's High School) recruited me to help with the teaching of PE first and then the remedial work. That was when my passion and interest in education started. Initially, I had thought I would become a lawyer, but I just continued in that field."
She then attended Bayero University, Kano, where she obtained a combined honours degree in English and History in Education in 1980. "I went back home to teach for two years and got a USAID award to do my master's programme."
She obtained a MSc. in Educational Leadership from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America in 1985. She also obtained a Certificate in Educational Policy Analysis at the Harvard Graduate School in July 1996, and another Certificate in Executive Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration in July 1999.
"I switched over to management in education because I said probably, I would enjoy running a school of my own, so I did planning and management, following which I went back home and ran the first technical high school in the country, through which we tried to popularise the vocationalisation of high schools."
The world is just beginning to focus on technical and vocational education (TVE) as a veritable tool for societal development, even though many African countries still pay lip service to it. Ndong-Jatta was asked why she pioneered TVE in high school, when many looked and still look down on it as a field for those who are not smart enough to cope rigorous academic pursuits. She regretted that "unfortunately when it comes to technical and vocational education, we are still in the past; we consider technical and vocational education as just learning to do metal work and wood work. Technical and vocational education, for me, evolves over time. From pre-stone age, to the Stone Age, the industrialised age and so on. You used different skills."
"When we talk about technical and vocational skills, we are looking at skills that would enable you to really survive within your existing context. So technical and vocational education is in every field that you can talk about, in health, in agriculture, you need technical and vocational skills in whatever you are doing. There are skills you really need in order to be able to interpret the environment you live in. I believe in the theory of the creation. When God created man, He gave man control over the world, so if we are loosing control to manage our environment, it is because we have not allowed the skills that are required to really be updated and to evolve, so for me, technical and vocational education is crucial."
Being left with no choice but to leave her country to pursue university education challenged Mrs. Ndong-Jatta to establish the first one in her country. As Director of Planning, she played a key role in the establishment of the University of The Gambia, which started as an extension programme in 1999 and was inaugurated in 2000.
"We started using a different model. We didn't have any campus, but I used the idea of universities without walls, working within existing structures and drawing on expertise in other universities in the sub-region and abroad to set up a governance structure, quality assurance and accreditation system and to grow from there.
"We were doing what we called university extension programme, which meant we were getting courses though the St. Mary's University (Halifax, Nova-Scotia) in Canada and we were able to put in place the structures that led to starting the first university in 2000", she said.
The former Co-ordinator of the Catholic Church's National Family Planning Programme (1986-1993) described The Gambia as her laboratory. "I had always been interested in the performance levels of children, in particular, those who are left out of the system. So I started working in the rural setting and that really increased my passion for those who are left out.
"Going into the ministry as a Director of Planning and given my background in planning and management, my focus had always been on getting quality data and with that, we introduced decentralisation with focus on quality, relevance and equity. Access and targeting the excluded means we must promote decentralisation because those who are excluded are not in the urban areas.
"By the time I became the Minister of Education, it was very much in place. I saw the need, as a government functionary, to be able to mobilise partnerships at the country level and to lead the process, not allow partnerships to dictate the way you should go because then, you are completely derailed."
Before Ndong-Jatta left government, the Gambia had already topped the list of countries in West Africa on the move to achieving the Education for All (EFA) goals.
" While respecting the completion of five years as a reasonable goal, while respecting that as an indicator, we have to measure how many children we put through school, I realised, yes, you can measure whether you have succeeded in putting them through five years of primary education, but you can only keep them in school if they know they have something beyond five years and we started the advocacy for nine years uninterrupted education and with that, there was phenomenal growth (in enrolment and retention) from something in the region of about 45 percent in 10 years, we were able to increase it to close to 70 percent and for me, that is an achievement."
Asked what gives her the most satisfaction, she said, "From my experience as a minister, I think one thing that gave me the most satisfaction was that I was able to raise the profile and capacity of the women I found in the ministry be able to contribute to national development. I gave them training and raised them to the level of directors of regional offices because when we decentralised, we had to create directorates in each of the divisions. So we were then able to lead and it led to equity at the level of teacher recruitment and posting.
At the level of the students, we created what the President of the Republic today has adopted as a pet project, a scholarship trust fund for rural girls. We were not looking at just universalising access, also at targeting those who, even where you make a pronouncement, you have a legal framework for free or compulsory education, they still won't be in the system. So we targeted rural population and ensured that they were provided with scholarships to be able to continue beyond primary six. So they were able to complete basic education and then go on to secondary school.
"Basic education must provide life long opportunities for learning. It is the foundation and it is one that really looks at the four pillars of education for the 21st century. UNESCO clearly defines the four pillars of education - learning to know, to do, to be and to live together and if we can really at that foundational level create the basis for future learning, then we have really provided basic education", she said.
She was also asked what she had learnt and what she was bringing to the development agenda as Director of BREDA. She said, "I have learnt that development is not artificial. It has to impact on the lives of people. You may have development partners, but the efforts must be driven by countries. Countries must determine what form of development they need. I saw opportunities as a minister and I saw opportunities working with a development organisation. I still see opportunities and the opportunities I see are not too much in counting what each is doing and trying to show which government is performing or not performing, rather, I bring with me fresh ideas of how we can really work together to respond to some of the needs that governments have identified. We can change the face of Africa if governments can take leadership, but it must be one that, I must hasten to add, has to be very objective, not out of self interest, but the interest of the general population. I go to BREDA full of enthusiasm and hope that things will happen and happen differently because it is not a question of negotiating with development partners, but also capacitating African governments to take the leadership in development that is so badly needed in our various countries. Development in education will open the door for development in all other areas of society.
Copyright © 2008 This Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
Read comments. Write your own.
