By Yankuba Manneh
The association of Gambian students in the People’s Republic of China has on Thursday released a media dispatch to news media outlets in The Gambia, expressing deep concern about the fate of their members who’re on the brink of losing their studentship at their various universities across China and at worse, risking “deportation” if they fail to pay their outstanding tuition fees by Saturday 10 January, 2026.
The liberal concept that if one wants to make it in life, one has to acquire higher education is not only pervasive but seemingly embraced by young people in The Gambia. More and more young Gambians are now determined to attain university degrees at home and abroad as a promised benchmark for the inevitable “success” in life. Well, this promise of the liberals is contested and falsified in today’s market-driven capitalist world characterized by joblessness and underemployment of university degree holders. There are graduates in the world still entangled in student debts exacerbated by unemployment, which take them years to free themselves of this financial bondage. Maybe, if you think university diploma is a symbol of prosperity, you should rethink about it.
Although, it is impressive to see how our young people clamor for a university diploma nowadays. That’s a good thing in itself. Such a mood among the future leaders of this country should be encouraged by all and sundry. Education is important. It should been seen as something that transcends financial gains to enlightenment. An enlightened individual, in my view, is a rich and empowered individual; a citizen with the currency to change his immediate society and the world as a whole.
University education worldwide started off as a crucial public good but quickly slipped into the private realm since the dawn of the so-called liberalization era from 1990s. I mean everything now becomes commodity in the market. Levying tuition fees normalized and shooting through the roofs annually. Governments’ subsidies plummeted or ineffectively available, thereby compromising societies’ natural commitment to building an enlightened, self-sustaining, peaceful, and thriving world.
Studying abroad is challenging. It even becomes more challenging if you are on self-sponsorship. Being on scholarship of any sort is a privilege, not a show of being the best among the lot. But let’s discuss the plights of Gambian Students in China (GSIC) on Gambia Government scholarship. In their press release, they highlighted certain issues of concern: possible termination of their studentship and a threat of deportation. These are too extreme ends for any student abroad. In their communique they seem to have exhausted all possible channels to authorities in The Gambia for a resolution. But nothing feasible other than Minister Pierre Gomez’s response, showing his “disappointment” in GSIC executive for bringing this matter to public attention. The public a vital accountability institution for the government and public officials, not adversaries to any public position holder.
Having read GSIC’s press release detailing the practical steps and communication channels, it showed and demonstrated the student leadership’s responsibility and commitment to proactively follow protocols and procedures to resolve their members’ concern and worry. They engaged with MoHERST and the Gambian Embassy in Beijing numerous times. They also engaged with President Barrow on his China visit in September 2024. As a group in need of their government’s support for guaranteeing continuity of their studies abroad, engaging the media should be seen as their last resort and they must not be vilified or reprimanded. Rather one should see it as a desperate attempt to fix the problem. All who might have experienced what these cohort(s) of students are faced with in a foreign country would very much relate to their circumstances and understand why they couldn’t be silent it anymore. But is it a an offense or a crime for one on government scholarship to come to media with their concerns as grave as this one?
These students aren’t ingrates by all standards. They recognized in their letter the invaluable support rendered by both Gambian Embassy in China and the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, Science, and Technology. That recognition doesn’t and shouldn’t absolve MoHERST of the students’ current dilemma in China or of even paying their tuition fees to ensure their education continue uninterrupted.
When this medium received GSIC’s letter, it immediately reached out to MoHERST for their side of the story. Minister Gomez expressed disappointment that this matter is being brought to public notice through media and also said many of these students initially enrolled privately but later admitted on Gambia government scholarship through the embassy’s intervention. A response that should’ve never come in the middle of a crisis and desperation like this one is meant to downplay the ordeals of these students. Such moments call for solution-oriented response, not apportioning blame or absolving oneself of the responsibility placed on you. Because these students are at a critical crossroads of their educational adventure in a wonderland. Taking responsibility, either fulfilled or failed, is a cardinal principle of leadership.
“Following engagements between MoHERST and the embassy, the ministry incorporated these students into its scholarship program on humanitarian grounds,” quoting from The Alkamba Times’s story on Minister Gomez’s response to the issue.
What I couldn’t wrap my head around in Minister’s response is his wild characterization of these students in dire need of assistance as wielding a “smear campaign” against his ministry and government. Politicizing students’ educational support should be the least we should devolve into as a country. But these are the results when poor farmers’ sons and daughters, who rely on government support, always get. No minister in the country or the president has his or her children suffering like this to get educated. Only poor taxpayers’ kids come under such ridicule.
What minister Gomez needs to know and understand that for MoHERST to pay tuition fees for Gambians accepted in its scholarship packages at home or abroad isn’t a favor or “help” to the child of any parent. It’s something due to them. They’re Gambians and the tuition money is indirectly paid off by their parents and every Gambian citizen in tax.
Apparently, this is not the first time and certainly not the last time for MoHERTS sponsored-students abroad complained about delay in tuition payments. The last one I could recall was the case of Gambian students in Morroco. Governance, as we know, is about management. And priority management is critical.
Instead of bloviating into angry response, Minister Gomez and the MoHERST should have activated their diplomatic relationship with their Chinese counterparts in Beijing to negotiate on how to keep these distressed students on studies and make arrangements for settling the arrears in the nearest future. And responsibly communicate that to GSIC leadership with clarity and assurance of the ministry concern and resolve to fixing the problem. That would be seen not only as a display of responsible leadership but also a considerate one.
Why MoHERST and the Gambia government should act now to ensure these students aren’t affected in anyway possible is because a lot of taxpayers’ money has been expended on them already. If their studies are discontinued and deported as reported, it will a waste of of time for the students but a monumental loss of tax money that could’ve been used to drill boreholes for some villages in the country without pipe borne water or buy some ICU equipment for ill-equipped Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital to save so many lives, including those of our ministers’ extended families.
