Gambia School Support (GSS) assists ‘Community’ owned nursery schools or ‘Early Child Development’ (ECD) schools as they are called by the Ministry of Basic & Secondary Education (MoBSE) in The Gambia.

Our projects are implemented by an organisation called the ‘Gambian Management Team’(GMT) which has been operating since 2003.

Since Sept 2016 GSS has assisted 7 struggling ECD schools which were in danger of collapse and turned them around by:

1. Providing good quality premises by either restoring dilapidated existing buildings or building new schools.

2. Re-equipping them with classroom furniture and teaching aids.

3. Paying for teachers to qualify and entering them all on our bespoke teacher training program.

4. Introducing higher standards of education making sure the excellent MoBSE curriculum is followed. Also, we ensure proper class sizes and safeguarding standards.

5. A focus on the education and care of the girls and the disabled.

6. Developing and encouraging the implementation of strong administration, good
governance and leadership at each school.

7. Importantly, we work together with the local communities, their PTA’s, Head Teachers and officials from MoBSE to steadily improve each school’s financial and governance independence.

GSS is also investing in the ‘GMT’ who ensure that our donor’s money is spent wisely and that the standards set for each school are met. If a school fails to meet these standards, we withdrawn our assistance.

The Trustees of GSS believe that the foundations have now been laid to scale the project rapidly and bring about profound change to the lives of the children at the schools we help.