The selected topic for this week’s Education In-depth analysis is Civic Education.
We felt it necessary to share views with our eminent readers on this topic as paramount to cohesive and well established society in the modern world.
Civic education seems negated and the institution that constitutionally mandated to handle is also seem to be malfunctioning in this crucial time in our society.
Why civic education is not gaining ground? This is a question any patriotic citizen should meditate about.
We see civic education from the perceptive of the world view by looking into our own scenarios, make dichotomy of the two and then come out with issues of this important area.
Civic education is the life blood of civic empowerment of citizen to be able to make an informed choice and participate fully in the administrative life of their society.
Civic Education from the world view is education in self government, where citizens are actively involved in their governance without accepting dictums of others or acquiesce to the demands of others. Aristotle once said, “if liberty and equality as thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost”.
 It is believed that the ideals of democracy are most completely realized when every member of the political community shares in its governance.
 The members of the political community are the citizens. Membership is the participation and not for participation sake.
The participation of citizens in a democratic society must be based on informed, critical reflection, the understanding and acceptance of the rights and responsibilities that go with that membership.
In a democratic society, civic education assuredly needs to be concerned with promoting understanding of the ideals of democracy and a reasoned commitment to the values and principles of democracy.
Democracy should not therefore be misrepresented as utopia and all citizens need to understand that lest they become cynical, apathetic or simply withdraw from political life when their unrealistic expectations are not met.
It is recommended that to be effective, civic education must be realistic; it must address the central truths about political life.
The American Political Science Assocition (APSA) recently formed a task force on civic education.
Its objective calls for more realistic teaching about the nature of political life and a better understanding of the complex elements of the art of the possible.
It is belief that in politics one either wins or loses, and to win means getting everything at once.
The sense that politics can always bring another day, another chance to be heard, to persuade and perhaps to gain part of what one wants is lost. Political education today seems unable to teach lessons of our political history.
In The Gambia a similar association to APSA had been formed and is called National Council for Civic Education (NCCE). NCCE is an independent non parsian government institution created by the constitution of the second republic of The Gambia (1997) chapter xvii, article 198(1).
The decision to institutionalize a civic education council and programme in The Gambia was to address weakness of the key elements of the government structures in order to enable the proposed reform initiative make an impact.
Civic education is considered to have the potential of promoting the acquisition of knowledge about the role of individual in providing the welfare of his or her society and the mechanisms, instruments and process available in their societies.
This institution used to be very vibrant in its mandates but there had been serious declines in its constitutional mandates nowadays.
The functions of this gigantic institution to our understanding is not limited to only political education but on all sectors of governance of our dearest   pro bono.
If for example the NCCE personnel’s roles is narrowed down to political education, I think they should be all out in all nuke and crane of the country in sensitizing the citizens on their rights to register and participate in the coming presidential election come November.
Voter registration is in progress and is near close; complaints of irregularities had reached the media in some areas until the IEC chairman took it upon himself to tour the country throughout the registration period in order to find a clue to the problem.
There is a perennial problem from of low level of awareness in The Gambia. This is a symbolic problem to the growth and development of the nation, being economical, political, social, educational, environmental and so on.
This is our greatest weakness and had been shown blind eyes in all sectors of good governance. This can be clearly heard and seen in our constitutional dispensation of political rights.
Some openly attacked others as oppositions, unless a clear cut definition is attached to opposition, what we termed as opposition in The Gambia is an ignorant and dejected definition.
Gambia is blessed with a vast stretches of land and water across the country and the active population is failing to tap these resources and utilize them to the fullest for the benefit, progress and development of our society.
Needless to say part of the ignorance of the people in this country is deprivation from knowing what they have the right know.
The moribund nature of the NCCE is a shining example such deprivation.
In any important forum, the president of the republic always manifests his dissatisfaction of the slow respond of the active labour force.
In the recent cabinet retreat at Kanilia, president Jammeh again reiterated his teeming worries about the lackadaisical attitude of most of the youths who are depending too much on parents and other relative instead of standing upright to eradicate the poverty in the society which is a major huddle for our progress and low standard of living in the country.
It is indeed a precarious situation for all of. The president had mentioned that resources had been invested in training youths in NYSS and the trainees are never at the sites engage in the much anticipated useful economic activities to break the shackle of dependency and poverty.
These are enormous and quiet adequate for a concern leader to admonish his people.  
The attitude of most of our youths is becoming worrisome not to president Jammeh alone but anyone, but to the donors and all those who are concerned about development.
To help change the current situation, there must be a robust institution responsible for public education like NCCE.
The candid truth of the population is lack of awareness and sense of direction of many of us.
Our population need vigorous sensitisation on all sectors be it agriculture, education, trade, politic, transport, fisheries, environment, security, tourism, communication, religion, social amenities, finance, health, human rights to mention few.
There cannot be any meaningful development when we are subject to discrimination in labour forces and other vital sectors of the state in the name of political differences.
People should not be put under duress, because they divergent views, which are still an impediment to our development.
We had voted president Jammeh and the National Assembly members into the office and it is our right to come all out show them our dissatisfaction on prevailing issues affecting us directly and indirectly without fear or favour.
A forum has to be created for such through proper public education media.
Our responsibility is to be proactive in the calls of our leaders in national development and always be at the forefront to drive utility from the limited available resources we are naturally endowed with and do not allow others to come to our soil and extract them and we end up to being xenophobic as experienced in other countries.
This can be attained if we have a well focused public education media to reach to the entire population and clarify their stances in the sharing of the national cake.
Without such, it would be very difficult for us to realise our visions.
Sharing is essential in a democratic society - the sharing of power, of resources and of responsibilities.
 In a democratic society, the responsibility of effecting social change is ever present, if citizens have the knowledge, the skills and the will to bring it about. That knowledge, those skills and the will or necessary traits of private and public characters are the products of a good civic education.