Gambia College and IOU sign MOA

Haddija Jawara Islamic Online University (IOU) and the Gambia College School of Education on Thursday 22^nd January 2015 signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to upgrade some of the courses offered by the Gambia College School of Education to IOU standards. The MOA was signed between the Chancellor of the Islamic Online University Dr. Bilal Philips and Madam Isatou Ndow head of the Gambia College School of Education at the College’s Campus. In signing the MOA, Madam Ndow said the agreement is meant to synchronize the two schools curriculum especially those in the Islamic section. This, she said, will make them find it easy to enter IOU to continue their education to a degree and not only stop at a diploma program. “We will also work with IOU to look at our Intensive English Course and the Intensive Arabic Course for the madarasah students to improve their language skills,” Madam Ndow said. On his part, Dr. Philips said they have looked at the offline teachings in terms of implementing the programme and have found certain things which they might be able to do immediately such as the Intensive English Course and the Intensive Arabic Course which they are already offering. “The degree programme we are offering, we can look at how we are going to offer it. If we have sufficient internet access here, we will look at the possibilities of even the first year students taking our courses along with their courses so that if they finish they will have additional credit which they can use towards the degree programme,” he added. He continued that they will also look into the content of the college’s school of education’s current courses to see where they can add additional value to give it university credit standard and without having to do separate courses. The registrar of Gambia College, Aboubacarr Jallow, added that the College being the oldest Tertiary Institution in the country is always committed to quality education and that this agreement will help his institution to achieve that. Ousainou Allen, the IOU Gambia representative, said this is a milestone in the education system of The Gambia because the teachers who have gone through the Gambia College have made a great impact in the country and now they are taking that to another step by empowering the teachers more and given them more tools to give Gambians quality education.  ]]>