1,500 children benefit from CBE in Karaga District
A total of 1,500 children in the Karaga District in the Northern Region who have successfully completed nine months literacy and numeracy skills training in the Complementary Basic Education (CBE) programme in the district will join their counterparts in the formal school system at the beginning of the new academic year in September.
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The children, aged between eight and 14, are among a total of 5,495 learners who have benefited from the programme in six districts where the programme is being implemented in Northern Ghana.
The other beneficiary districts are Pusiga, Bongo, Bawku/Binduri, Talensi and Nabdam in the Upper East and West regions respectively.
Beneficiary districts
Afrikids Ghana, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), is implementing the CBE programme in the six beneficiary districts.
The NGO has also made available 22,000 exercise books for all the 5,495 learners, with each receiving four exercise books with pencils and erasers, as they start school in September this year.
The beneficiaries have also been provided with school uniforms from the education directorate and the assembly.
The government prioritised the CBE programme to cater for children, particularly girls, and those in rural areas, who are taught basic literacy, numeracy and life skills in their mother tongue using accelerated literacy strategies contextualised to their community to make them ready to join primary school for the first time.
At the graduation ceremony of the new learners at Nakondugu in the Karaga District in the Northern Region, the Country Director of Afrikids, Mr Nicholas Kojo Kumah, announced that a total of 4,400 learners in the six beneficiary districts were next to benefit from the next cycle of the programme.
He said a total of 1,300 children were expected to benefit from the programme in the next cycle in the Karaga District and gave an assurance that Afrikids would continue to collaborate with all stakeholders in the educational sector in the districts to roll out the intervention.
Parents/Girl-child
Mr Kumah commended all the facilitators who volunteered to teach the children and entreated parents in the beneficiary districts to continue to support their children as they entered the formal school, adding that it would be disappointing if they neglected their responsibilities and made them drop out.
He cautioned parents against forcing their daughters into early marriages as a result of poverty, but rather support them to stay in school and complete and even continue to a higher level.
“I am particularly concerned about the girl-child. Let’s support them to go high in education and not push them into early marriage. Higher education will make them more resourceful to help you, their parents, and the man they marry in the future,” Mr Kumah stated.
The children, who were highly elated about their progress, were also presented with certificates at the graduation ceremony.