QUESTION OF THE DAY
DOES THE GOVERNMENT SEE THE UNIVERSITY AS A PRIORITY?
Recently, the Government of the Gambia announced that it has given scholarships to many students to do their Masters or PhD programmes in Mathematics and other natural Sciences .
Nothing was said about the development of the professional qualification of the academic and administrative staff of the University .
The simple truth is that developing a University requires strategic planning. A University must build its governance structures and ensure that members have the requisite professional qualification and experience to be able exercise direction and control over the affairs of the University with efficiency and effectiveness.
Furthermore, a University must have an academic staff with the highest level of qualification who would be gradually promoted to become professors in all fields of study.
A University must be the depository of the sum total of human knowledge to be of world standard.
There is a notion among people who are not truly exposed to the wide world of academia that true knowledge comes from mathematics and natural science. However when the world was devastated by the Second World War economists met to find out how to reconstruct Europe. The current World Bank and IMF whose decisions The Gambia government cannot ignore are the by product of the recommendations of such economists. Both Social and Natural Science help human beings to shape the world. Knowledge has no frontiers. Both social and natural science are indispensable when it comes to development. Those who trivialise any of them are not interested in development.
Hence a Government which is truly interested in building a University would give priority to the professional development of its Academic staff without erecting any imaginary frontiers.
