The Youth Ambassadors of Peace (YAP), on Saturday, concluded a two-day validation workshop on their Base Line Survey Report on school attendance for the 2006/07 accademic year in RegionTwo, held in Brikama.

The Commonweath Education Fund (CEF) The Gambia, entered into partnership with the Youth Ambassadors of Peace to commit the skills and expertise of its members to conduct advocacy activities in schools. The activities were geared towards facilitating improvment in school attendance for the attainment of quality education in general.
 
Among other things, the objective of the survey was to pave a way out to carry advocacy activities in most of the secondary and upper basic schools to help improve school attendance, performance and peace building. The survey is also meant to lobby the policy makers to put quality education on the social and political agenda for the purpose of effecting positive change.

The Youth Ambassadors of Peace thus conducted a Base Line Survey to verify the actual number of teacher-pupil contact hours attained in schools in 2006/07 academic year.

In an interview with the Daily Observer shortly after the validation workshop, Fabakary Kalleh, executive secretary of YAP said the validation has brought together stakeholders to validate the findings of the Base Line Suvey.

"We will use the survey report to advocate for changes. Although the policy stated that all regions should develop their own calenda there should be a benchmark which says the  teacher-pupil contact hours should be at least 880 hours. It will be interesting to note that The Gambia has the lowest contact hours in the sub-region," he said.

Salifu Jobe, a representative of the Regional Education Director, Region Two, said the workshop was a starting point for awareness on educational issues to youth groups.

"It can help in the attainment of quality education," he emphasised.

In her keynote remarks on behalf of the governor of Western Region, Sainabu Faal, assistant governor of the region, said she was elated that YAP came up with a such a wonderful initiative. Ms Faal assured YAP of her office's continued support at all times. She urged participants to take the workshop seriously.