By Godfred A. Polkuu, GNA
Gambaga (N/R), July 26, GNA – Action Aid Ghana, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), has trained and graduated a total number of 974 out of school children in the Compulsory Basic Education (CBE) programme in the East Mamprusi Municipality.
Owing to the positive impact the programme has in returning more children to the classroom it called on government to expand educational infrastructure in communities.
The pupils, comprising 553 girls and 421 boys were enrolled and trained in local languages namely; Mampulli and Likpakpaaln in communities across the Municipality in the fifth cycle of the programme this year.
Action Aid, which is also a human rights organization considers child education a priority and has over the years promoted access to quality education. It has enrolled 1,787 girls and 1,338 boys for the fourth and fifth cycles of the programme within the 2017 and 2018 calendar year in the Municipality.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony at Gambaga in the Northern Region, Mr Yakubu Akuka, the CBE Coordinator, said the programme provided functional literacy and numeracy training to children who had either dropped out of school or were not privileged to be in school and subsequently integrated them into the formal school system to pursue and realize their dreams and aspirations.
He said preference was given to the girl child in the enrolment process because Action Aid believes that poverty eradication was impossible without a concerted focus on the education of girls and women.
« It is very delightful to see these young future leaders who are graduating from CBE today after nine months of training in basic literacy and numeracy skills in their mother tongue ready to go to formal school, » Mr Akuka said.
He thanked officials of the Ghana Education Service (GES) in the Municipality for the role they played during the implementation of the programme, adding that « I want to make a special appeal to the GES that now that the programme is going to be entrusted into your hands for implementation, you would try as much as possible to sustain and make it even better. »
Mr Abdul-Nasir Danladi, the East Mamprusi Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) in a speech read on his behalf, said about 30 to 33 percent of national budget was invested into education and « this tells you how important education is, in the development of Ghana. »
He said government as part of efforts to ensure the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) programme, has made a number of interventions to promote education in the Municipality including the school feeding programme and the capitation grant at the basic level to encourage pupils to attend school and to support the activities of the GES.
Mr Danladi said in a bid to promote girl child education in the area, the Assembly has established a Junior High School (JHS) for girls, and constructed an additional three classroom unit block with office accommodation.
He said the Assembly sometimes got scholarships for young and brilliant girls to further their education to the university level, adding that « unfortunately you go round and will not find a single girl within the Municipality who has the qualification to be selected to pursue courses. »
He urged the pupils who would eventually be enrolled into formal school to take their studies seriously so that the efforts of their parents, Action Aid Ghana and the GES would not be in vain.
