The two-day national training workshop for UNESCO Aspnet School Co-ordinators on Aspnet activities, last Saturday ended at the Media Training Centre, New GRTS Building, MDI Road.

The workshop was organised by Aspnet, in collaboration with The Gambia National Commission for UNESCO (NATCOM). The objective of the workshop was to build the capacity of the new co-ordinators to be able to manage and successfully implement Aspnet activities in their schools, and also to provide new school co-ordinators with the essential support and skills, through training and information sharing.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Kunkung Jobarteh, Deputy Permanent Secretary at the Department of State for Basic and Secondary Education, who spoke on behalf of the Permanent Secretary, Babucarr Bouye, briefly elaborated on the objectives, priorities and strategies of Aspnet which, he said, have contributed to the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals(MDGs).

Jobarteh further added that the associated schools promote the ideals of UNESCO, through pilot projects geared towards preparing children and young people to effectively meet the challenges of an increasingly complex and inter-dependent world.

He said Aspnet is a network of committed schools engaged in fostering quality education in pursuance of peace, liberty, justice and human development in order to meet the pressing educational needs of children and young people throughout the world.

Speaking earlier, Sukai Bojang, Secretary-General of NATCOM, said the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Education Project (TST), known as ‘Breaking the Silence’ was launched in 1998, by UNESCO within the framework of the associated schools project network to improve the teaching of history by narrating stories on the slave trade and slavery.

For her part, Adelle Sock, assistant national Aspnet Co-ordinator, said that Aspnet is the world’s largest network of schools linked to the United Nations, adding that it was created initially in 1953, with 15 countries, as an educational pilot project and today it covers 176 countries and more than 7,900 schools and colleges. He said that in The Gambia, it began as a small family of 10 schools in Regions One and Three.

The ten schools were inducted in 1996 and certificates were awarded to these schools in March 1997. Another speaker was Hassoum Ceesay, a historian who spoke on the trans-atlantic slave trade, and Yahya Al-Matarr Jobe, National Aspnet Co-ordinator.