NGO to enroll 18,100 out of school children

School for Life (SfL), an educational focused Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), would enroll 18,100 out-of-school pupils into the lower primary in nine districts of the Northern and Upper West regions during the 2016/2017 academic year.

As part of interventions to achieve this objective, School for Life has embarked on training of community facilitators to teach the out-of-school children in their mother tongue for a period of nine months after which they would be enrolled into the formal educational system as part of the Complementary Basic Education Programme.

A statement issued in Tamale on Tuesday and signed by Mr Abdul-Mumin Ahmed, Communications and Advocacy Officer for School for Life, indicated that UKaid and USAID were funding the project, partnered by the Ghana Education Service.

The statement mentioned the beneficiary districts as Yendi, Mion, Nanumba South, Zabzugu, Kumbungu, Saboba, Central Gonja, Sagnarigu and Wa West.

“Ghana Complementary Basic Education Programme is a nation-wide intervention aimed at offering thousands of children in deprived communities who are within school-going-age but are not in school the opportunity to attain basic skills in numeracy and literacy,” the statement said.

It said classes would be set within which the out-of-school children would be taught in their mother tongue to attain basic numeracy skills equivalent to the first three grades of primary education to enable them to build a strong foundation for onward enrollment and integration into the formal schools.

The statement said the programme took inspiration from the ‘functional literacy for children’ which was piloted by the NGO in 1995 in Yendi and Gushegu and appealed to the Ghana Education Service and the various district assemblies to join in providing the needed support to ensure the success of the programme.