BOOK REVIEW: CHERNO OMAR BARRY, A BRIEF HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN THE GAMBIA, IOU PRESS, 2022, 118 PAGES

Abstract

A Brief History of Education in The Gambia by Cherno Omar Barry is a well-researched book that contextualizes the history of education in West Africa, the challenges of education policies and the government's response to education in general. The book is divided into nine concise chapters which comprehensively discuss the story of Western education in The Gambia from the 1820s to the more modern period. The author discusses the religious, political, and social context in which Western education thrived in the country in the introduction to the book. The British colonial structure of indirect rule, the Colony and Protectorate, influenced the spread of Western education. The Colony had better access to schools much earlier (p.2). The context of Christianity and Islam was also significant in the development of Western education in The Gambia. The author explains that Islamic education had already taken firm root before the 1820s, meaning that the British did not find a completely illiterate populace when they were building the first Western schools in the 1820s. Western education, therefore, benefitted from the literacy tradition of Islamic education, which predated it.