Mr Ousman Nyang, the managing director of the National Training Authority (NTA), has affirmed that NTA has a mandate to make sure that they establish a quality training trend in all training institutions in the Gambia, in line with Presidents Jammeh’s vision 2020 action and implementation plan.

In an interview with the Daily Observer, recently, on the imminent closure of some training institutions in the country because of their failure to settle their registration and accreditation with the NTA, Mr Nyang outlined the standards for the registration and accreditation of training providers .

“ NTA was established by an act of parliament and it was given the mandate to look and over see the affairs of training institutions to make sure that they deliver quality education, become academically recognized learning centres. This is why the NTA consulted and discussed with all these concerned institutions to work out a standard plan and course of registration so as to avoid imposing any on these institution,” he said.

The NTA boss further added that his organisation, in its quest to provide quality training and tutoring, organised a training course for centre managers on how to better manage and provide quality training to the people.

For his part, Momodou Bittaye, the acting director of Quality Assurance said that in an overveiw of the standards for accreditation of training providers there are four kinds of school or institutions prevalent in the Gambia.

These are public, private, NGO’s and charitable institutions.  He noted that the code of practice relating to the management of these standards has six sections with regards to the registration of training providers.

“To be registered, training providers must be an entity, have a clear and standing structure, have clear purpose, be financially viable, serve the interest of learners, be commited to their tutors and most importantly be commited to quality,” he said.

He added that these criteria and standards are very important in making sure that training providers serve the interest of the people and not the NTA .
According to him, the standards and regulations were set-up and validated by the institutions themselves.

“We wanted to make sure that we exercise democracy and fairness within the training sector.  However, the  issue here is not the cost of fees for registration which is considerably low, because for us, the cost is only D750, Licence D650, and  the quality audit fee of D100 all of it summing up to D2,400.00 for the whole process of registering an institution. Most training providers charge more than this per course. So the problem is not the cost of fees but the unwillingness of many training providers to go through the process of registration,”  he added.

Mr Bittaye further reiterated that they have been following these institutions to settle down and register their institutions since May 2007, and if they don’t comply by the rules governing training providers in the country, the NTA would have no other option but to close them down.

“In recent years, The Gambia has witnessed an influx of training institutions, most of which have already created household names for themselves in the training sector. Prominent among these are institutions like Quantum Associates, Quantum Institute of Technology, SoS Herman Gmeiner Further Education Centre etc. We have served closure notices which starts in effect on the 31st of January should they fail to legalise their status,” he added.