UK Charity complements Government's efforts in Education in the North

Tongo, (UE), Dec.20, GNA- Comic Relief, a United Kingdom Charity, is rolling out a pilot dubbed "Tackling Educational Needs Inclusively" (TENI) in all basic schools in the Talensi Nabdam District in Upper East, West Mamprusi District in Northern and Jirapa in the Upper West Regions. The five-year project started aimed at achieving retention , transition and performance rates of all school children in basic schools in the operational areas of the project and would be replicated in other parts of the three Northern Regions if successful.

Three Organizations are implementing the programme in the Talensi-Nabdam;

They are the Link Community Development (LCD), the lead Agency, Integrated Development Centre (ISODEC) both NGOs and the Directorate of the National Service Secretariat of the District. Speaking at a stakeholders meeting on the project in the Talensi-Nabdam District, the Project Assistant Development Officer of LCD, Mr. Osman Bala, stated that his outfit would lead the implementation of the "School Performance Review" (SPR) process where examinations would be conducted periodically for the school children with emphasis on Mathematics, English and the Sciences.

He explained that this had been tried and tested by the LCD in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service (GES) in the past and had worked perfectly and even led to the improvement of Basic Education Certificate Examination(BECE) results in beneficiary communities. Mr. Bala said LCD would also help improve the school Management Systems and Governance, strengthen communities to hold schools accountable for the performers of learners and improve District Planning and co-ordinations of all outputs in schools and also improve community ownership of schools. The District Director of the National Service Secretariat, Mr. Michael Zure, said the National Service Secretariat under its Voluntary Service Programme had recruited 700 teachers to augment the teaching staff of the GES for all the project implementation areas.

According to him,265 had been attached to the GES of the Talens-Nabdam District who would be teaching various subject areas including Mathematics, English, French and Information Communication Technology (ICT). He said another batch of the Volunteer teachers have also been attached to the Parents Teacher Associations(PTAs) and School Management Team (SMTs)to assist them run the affairs of the schools saying, most of PTA and SMTs had no vision and mission for their schools.

Mr. Azure said they would from time to time be motivated by sponsorship under the project to enroll at teaching training colleges to help address the shortage of trained teachers in the system.

Mr. Jonathan Adabere, Regional Manager of ISODEC in Upper East Region, advocacy player of the TENI Project, stated that the low rate of retention, transition and performance of school children was very low and blamed the situation partly on the withdrawal of school children by some parents in the area and said parents, PTA as well as SMTs of schools would be sensitized on the need to retain their wards in schools.

The District Director of Education, Mr. Francis Ayaba commended the sponsors and implementers of the programme and said it would help improve the falling standard of education in the District and called on parents, PTA and SMTs to live up to their responsibility. The Steering Committee of the TENI Project in the Talensi-Nabdam District is made up of a representative from District Assembly, GES, LCD , National Service Secretariat. 20 Dec.09