EQUIP-ing Schools for Quality Education

By Courtney Irwin

22^nd April 2012

UK based charity Tzedek has joined with School for Life to develop a new program aimed at improving the quality of education in Northern Ghana.

Tzedek is the Jewish community’s international development charity.  Having worked in Northern Ghana for a number of years, the organisation has sought to deepen their ties with the region, and to develop innovative solutions aimed at eliminating poverty in the country.

EQUIP is a recent program developed in collaboration with School for Life (SfL).  The project aims to improve the quality of education in schools in Northern Ghana through training of education stakeholders in child centred methodologies, and through the provision of teaching and learning materials including classroom charts, flash cards, and textbooks. 

The program was devised in response to an extensive year long investigation into the causes of poverty in Northern Ghana, which identified quality education as a major barrier to improvements in the country.  School for Life became involved in the initiative when Tzedek sought to engage local organisations with specialities in education and designed a pilot project which Tzedek agreed to fund.

The EQUIP program has just completed this one year pilot, focusing on twenty schools in the Saboba and Chereponi districts.  District Teacher Support Team trainers, from Ghana Education Services, responsible for delivering in-service training to school teachers, were engaged by EQUIP to deliver the program to P1 and P3 teachers in formal schools.  The schools were then provided with training and learning materials to support the use of the methods in the classroom.  In addition to this, training was provided to Head teachers, Circuit Supervisors, School Management Committees, and Parent Teacher Associations to raise awareness and support for the program, and to promote understanding of roles and responsibilities. 

Recently, staff members from Tzedek head office in London, Hirsh Cashdan and Umo Young were in the country to evaluate the pilot and to develop plans to extend the program.  The evaluation showed that the pilot has delivered impressive results to date.  Interviews and focus groups conducted have revealed that all the stakeholders involved are in agreement about the success of the program.  Parents and teachers continually note that their children are learning better, faster, and demonstrating greater capability.  Teachers are teaching better, and the supervision has improved.  Head Masters say the program has improved the management of schools.  Children themselves can see the benefits of the teaching and learning materials and say it helps them to understand easier.  “We can see it with our eyes” say the children “we can touch and practise with the materials”.  In addition to this, they note that they learn faster now that they are encouraged to ask questions in class.  Tests were conducted earlier in the pilot in 10 of the participant schools and 4 control schools in literacy and numeracy and the same tests conducted at the end of the pilot showed that the participant school children had, on average, gained 8 percentage points more than the equivalent control school children

Tzedek staff commented that one of the surprising findings of the evaluation was the effectiveness of a quiz competition organised between schools who had received the intervention.  Individuals selected by the school competed against each other in reading, spelling and the identification of images.  School champions then competed against other schools at the district level.  The teachers reported that the quiz competition had been very effective in engaging students, and that selection to participate in the quiz had been a motivating factor in improved classroom participation.

Plans are now in place to scale up the program over the next three years.  An additional nine districts and over 400 schools will be added to the program during this time, beginning with Tolon, Savelugo and Kumbungu districts.  The program will also be extended to train P2 teachers.  The full implementation will be funded by Tzedek supported itself by a large grant from UK based charity, Comic Relief.

The SfL EQUIP Team(from left to right): Bishe Jospeh Ubakoni (District Coordinator), Abukari Kadiri (District Coordinator), Yakambu Muniru Kalamba (District Coordinator), Umo Young (Tzedek Staff), Karimu A Mohammed (SfL Project Manager), Suleman Osman Saaka (SfL Programme Manager), Hirsg Cashdan (Tzedek Staff)