ActionAid Ghana launches complementary education project
ActionAid Ghana and Songtaba, both non-governmental organizations, have launched a complementary basic education project in Bimbilla in the Nanumba North District aimed at getting out school children back in school.
The purpose was to get 120,000 out of school children to access a standardized nine months functional literacy education to ensure they enroll in the formal school system in the 2014/15 academic year.
The project, which is community owned and demand driven, is being implemented with funding from the Department for International Development (DFID) and collaborated by the Ghana Education Service.
Miss Abukari Zelia, CBE Project Coordinator for ActionAid-Ghana, said this at Bimbilla during the launch of the CBE project.
She said before the launch of the project, community animation and sensitizations were carried out in 32 communities while 18 communities with 32 classes, 32 facilitators had been set up to teach in Likpakpaaln and Dagbani as the local languages to be used for the classes.
Miss Zelia said 800 learners out of which 422 were boys and 378 girls have been enrolled with 160 committee members to support the CBE classes in the beneficiary communities.
She said all the learners would be able to read and write and do simple calculations in the mother tongue after the nine months.
Miss Zelia said the GES and the District Assembly would support in monitoring and supervising and also expand facilities to absorb the additional numbers of learners who would be joining the formal school.
Alhaji Ibin-Abass, the District Chief Executive for Nanumba North, commended ActionAid and its partner Songtaba for bringing such a novelty project to complement the effort of the government in providing quality education for all.
He said the use of the mother tongue for instruction for the CBE classes was the best since that was in conformity with the educational policy especially at the lower level of basic schools and advised beneficiary communities to enroll their children.
Madam Adam Lamnatu, Programme Coordinator of Songtaba, said the area was fortunate to have benefited from the programme especially for the deprived communities and appealed to the government to expand infrastructure to take in more learners after completion.
Naa Atta Abarika, the regent of Bimbilla expressed worry that even though education started in the area as far back as 1964, most of the deprived areas still had high records of out of school children and appealed for support.
Source: GNA