A Seasoned educationist and Senior Principal, Mr. Merican SJ Mendy has finally retired as the principal of Mingdow School after over forty years of incredible service.
Master Mendy, a household name in the country, dedicated his entire life to nurturing, molding, and shaping generations of past and current leaders. He achieves what many could not in a lifetime. His story and dedication to uplifting society through Education have inspired hundreds of students nationwide.
In September 1982, Mr. Mendy wasted no time joining the teaching field as a fresh graduate and posted to Basse. He passionately went into the field to support his parents and be able to take care of himself as he joined the Gambia College the following year in 1983 to pursue a PTC program where he shares the same class with the current Vice President of the Republic, Muhammed BS Jallow, and the duo completed their program later in 1985.
He was posted to Sankulay Kunda Primary School as a qualified and certified Primary teacher. As time would have it, Mr. Mendy became the sole qualified teacher apart from the Head Master of the school.
Consequently, he assumed the Deputy Head Master role until 1986, when the Gambia College first piloted the HTC program. Mr. Mendy would then enroll, and again, current Vice President Jallow was his classmate when the program was only 2yrs as visiting lecturers from Bristol University in the UK will arrive every summer.
Upon completing the maiden HTC program in 1988, he went to Sukuta Junior for six years. He was Head of the Science department until he got promoted to a Senior Master category in 1994 and taken to Kaur Junior Secondary School for two years as Senior teacher and Vice Principal.
In June 1996, Mr. Mendy became Deputy Head of category three at Brikama-Ba until another piloted program for Headteachers was introduced at the University, where he was enrolled and completed in 2003. After that, he was posted to Gunjur as Deputy head Master then to Sibanor as Principal for a year, and then posted to Mingdaw in June 2005 as Principal of the Upper Basic School and later promoted to Principal of Mingdaw Upper and Senior Secondary School in 2012 and would later in 2019 be promoted to G12 Principal category.
A senior at Mingdaw, Mustapha Demba, reacting to the long-time principal retirement, said:
“A leader worth emulating. As a former student of Mingdaw UBS and later joined Mingdaw senior secondary in 2012, I’m grateful for his commitment and energy invested in transforming the lives of young people. Since 2006, when I joined Mingdaw in grade 7, this older man has encouraged and given them the zeal to produce results consistently. The man was very much committed to his task.”
