A total of 1,000 children who either dropped out of school or have never been in a classroom before have undergone a nine-month training in complementary basic education in Garu Tempane District of the Upper East.
Aged between eight and 14 years, the children were taken through basic literacy and numeracy skills in their mother tongue (kusaal).
The complementary basic education programme, which is spearheaded by ActionAid Ghana in collaboration with the Garu Tempane District Assembly and the GES, seeks to enable them enroll into mainstream education system.
The programme started in 1966 with Shepherd Schools Initiative in the Upper East Region after a research in 1994 revealed that 66 per cent of school going children in the region were out of schools.
Programme Coordinator for the CBE for Garu area, Yakubu Akuka, , said of the 1,000 children, 561 were boys and 439 girls from 38 communities.
He described the CBE programme as one of the best educational programme in Ghana as it prepares children intellectually and psychologically to be in school.
It also give an opportunity to the children who for no fault of theirs, cannot enjoy their right to education, he added.
He appealed to government to expand educational infrastructure in the communities in the area in order to accommodate the CBE graduates.
Mr Akuka wants government to establish new schools in some of the communities that do not have formal schools to make education more accessible because some of these children would have to walk for about 10 kilometres to the nearest school.
He thanked the Department for International Development (DFID) who are the main donors of the programme.
Assistant director in charge of human resource, Patrick Awugah, said several factors, including migration, foster parents, ignorance and poverty is accounting for school dropout in the area.
He underscored the need for parents to be encouraged and sensitized on the importance of educating their children rather than using them for domestic purposes.
The District chief executive of area, Emmanuel Asore Avoka, commended Actionaid Ghana and the CBE for the enormous strides made towards improving education in the district
The assembly, he said, will be making provisions to integrate the graduates into formal education at the beginning of the academic year. Forty facilitators were each given a certificate, half packet of roofing sheets and a half piece of cloth as appreciation for their hardwork and volunteerism.
In a related story, a total of 2,125 children have also graduated from the programme in the East Mamprusi District of the Northern Region
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