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• Mr Salia Ibrahim Adamu, Programme Facilitator of Ibis Ghana, presenting a bicycle to one of the facilitators at the ceremony.

Facilitators supporting education programme commended

Facilitators who are offering voluntary services in support of a Complementary-Based Education (CBE) programme in four deprived districts of the Northern Region have been commended for their exemplary service.

Mr Salia Ibrahim Adamu, Programme Facilitator of Ibis Ghana, an NGO that focuses on empowerment programmes for people in deprived communities, made the commendation at a ceremony at Sawla in the Northern Region during which the organisation presented a total of 81 bicycles valued at GH¢ 23,328.00 to facilitators who have voluntarily taught children over the past one year that the organisation initiated the programme.

The programme is being undertaken by Ibis Ghana in East and West Gonja, Bole and Sawla/Tuna/Kalba districts in the Northern Region to teach out-of-school children in those areas how to read, write and acquire numeracy skills to enable them to enrol in formal schools at the primary level.

This is being done by enrolling such children between the ages of eight and 14 in afternoon classes between 2:00p.m. and 5:p.m. where they are taught numeracy and literacy in their local languages such as Gonja, Dagaare and Birifor. This is after the children, especially the girls, have spent the morning doing various chores for their parents such as farming and herding of cattle.

Total number of classes

The programme,  which started last year, has a total of 100 classes,  with 25 learners constituting a class. Since the commencement of the programme, 2,500 learners have been enrolled in formal education after nine months tuition in their local languages by facilitators.

He said they had all been allocated to various classes based on their individual performances, adding that before joining the programme, most of the childre were unable to identify a single word of character in English.

He said a total of 6,425 more of such children had been enrolled to begin their nine-month classes in their local language in the four districts.  

The programme is expected to be replicated in other parts of the country to get more children to go to school and to meet the Millennium Development Goal Two which relates to attaining universal access to education. 

Challenges 

Mr Adamu mentioned their major challenges as getting facilitators to render voluntary services. He also mentioned the reluctance of some parents to release their children for the programme, low enrolment of children with by Red AdBlocker" href="#">disabilities and hard-to reach areas.

Mr David Dapila Dibaarnye of the Sawla/ Tuna/Kalba District Education Directorate expressed gratitude to Ibis Ghana for its intervention and promised that all efforts would be made to enrol more children into various schools. He appealed to parents to release their children, especially the girl-child, to attend the afternoon classes to enhance their future opportunities.

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