‘Take over Complementary Basic Education in northern Ghana’
The government has been urged to take over the Complementary Basic Education (CBE) programme to ensure that many more children of school age have access to formal education in the country.
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This is because the five-year CBE programme being implemented in the three regions in the north is due to end in 2018.
Since 2013, Ibis Ghana, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), with assistance from the Department for International Development (DFID) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), started the CBE programme in some deprived districts to get children who are out of school because of various reasons back to school.
Nine-month crash course
Out of a total of 25,874 children enrolled in CBE classes, 25,252 children completed the nine-month crash course in which they were taught basic skills in writing and reading in their own mother tongues to get them prepared for formal education based on their performances.
The programme is part of efforts to reduce the growing number of school- age children who are out of formal education due to pervasive poverty in that part of the country.
At the fourth appreciation ceremony of facilitators drawn from the four districts at Sawla in the Sawla/Tuna/Kalba (STK) District, the Ibis Programme Facilitator, Mr Salia Adamu, noted that during the four-year period, they had been able to enrol a total of 23,696 children successfully in formal education.
“Forty-nine per cent of the learners who completed the nine-month cycle and transitioned into formal schools are females,” he said.
The programme facilitator said the thrust of the reform was to give them a nine-month course in numeracy and literacy in their local languages, after which they were transitioned to formal education within the society geared towards socio-economic needs for national development.
Children out of school
Mr Adamu said they moved into the four districts of the Northern Region based on their observation that a lot of children between that age gap were out of school for various reasons, including ignorance and illiteracy.
“In a way, this is true to some extent since most of these children are engaged by their parents in various economic activities such as farming, trading and herding of animals in the districts.
“Thus, in order to create an enabling environment, the CBE was introduced to educate them during their leisure periods in reading and numeracy to get them prepared for formal education,” he noted.
“One hundred and sixty-six bicycles worth GH¢ 104,260 were distributed to the facilitators, whose services were mostly voluntary and had been able to complete the nine-month programme,” he announced.
He added that the number was out of 352 facilitators who had participated in the programme with them, adding that the rest who were not able to complete were given cash awards.
Challenges
Mr Adamu, however, mentioned some challenges which they had encountered in the smooth running of the programme.
These include advocacy against negative cultural beliefs and practices contributing to retention of girls in schools and the bad nature of roads network, making it impossible to reach some of the remote communities.
He said the programme was also in the STK, Bole, East Gonja and Kpandai districts of the Northern Region.
Gratitude
The STK District Director of Education, Mr Samuel Aawaar, said he was grateful to Ibis Ghana and the donor partners for their assistance to ensure that all children of school age participated in the education process.
He noted that the total enrolment of the children included 49 per cent females, most of whom dropped out due to pregnancies and early marriages.
In a welcome address, the Sawlawura, Naa Alidu Bukari, appealed to the youth to develop their potentials by taking their studies seriously in order to acquire new orientation to resolve some of the critical challenges within the society. He was grateful to the facilitators for making the CBE programme successful.