By Yunus S Saliu
National Centre for Arts and Culture (NCAC) and its partner, African Studies Association United Kingdom (ASAUK) Sunday ended its training workshops for 60 history teachers.
The training was split into two phases and held at the National Museum in Banjul and at the Kankurang Center, Janjangbureh in Central River Region.
Professor Toby Green of King’s College, UK among others present at the trainings.
The training workshops aimed at promoting the teaching of history in Gambian schools to assist in the UN SDG’s quality education goal.
Among other things the history teachers and students were introduced to a new history reference and resource material in the form of an e-book, titled WASSCE History Textbook, which covers the part one of the West African Senior Secondary History Exams syllabus called History of West Africa, developed by historians from The Gambia, Ghana, UK, USA, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. The e-book was digitized into flash drives and distributed to the participated teachers, and also 3000 other flash drives will be given to students in various Gambian schools.
During the training, the lead Facilitator Hassoum Ceesay thanked MoBSE and all the participants for attending the training. He as well expressed his sincere gratitude to ASAUK and Professor Toby Green of Kings College for their support and partnership with the centre. He said NCAC has a mandate to promote historical awareness and administers an oral archives and newspaper library which history researchers use.
Professor Toby Green of King’s College UK talked about the importance of the E-Book, as he took the participants through memory lane and also the about the Freetown meeting involving a group of Historians from Sub-Saharan Africa and the eventual publication of the E-Book.
After a brief discussion on the significance of the E-Book and the role it can play in the teaching of History in Gambian Schools, participants highlighted numerous challenges they face in the teaching of History in Gambian Schools. These challenges are from source-material, access to textbooks, teaching aids, poor curriculum designing, poor attitude towards History, to less government investment in historical studies.
The Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education was ably represented by the Curriculum Development Directorate which gave a good account of current efforts as the Ministry will ensure that history is given a boost it needs as far as curriculum development is concerned.
Among resolutions made by Gambian history teachers included review of History Textbooks currently in use so as to bring consistency in history facts and methods; frequent meeting of History Teachers through staff development workshops at school level; History Championships to engender interest among children; making History a Core Subject in schools and to encourage the study of history to enable entrepreneurship and job creation, build patriotism and also strengthen self-identity among students and citizen; development of digital infrastructure in schools to enable students and teachers to harness digital technology to study history via internet and social media.
