School for Life Advertises Learning and Development Center (LDC) in Upper East Region

By: Abdul-Mumin Ahmed

School for Life Ghana, has for the past two decades been providing complementary basic education to out-of-school children in deprived and under-served areas of Ghana. This commitment is in line with SfL’s mission of working to strengthen civil society’s role of improving access to relevant quality basic education by functioning as lead organization in delivering, demonstrating and advocating for mother-tongue based complementary basic education in underserved areas of Ghana. School for Life strives to be a center of excellence that inspire breakthroughs in education and provide technical support to civil society and education stakeholders.

School for Life has a superior track record of providing excellent complementary basic education in mother-tongue for out-of-school children. This has endowed the organization with enormous experiences, expertise and knowledge of challenges of basic education in Ghana and has therefore positioned the organization in a better place to present alternative ways of surmounting the challenges of basic education and to support the nation’s efforts at achieving universal basic education by 2015.

The learning and Development Center (LDC) was therefore established in 2012 to serve as a resource center that provides technical support to education stakeholders. The LDC has since been operational and has provided technical support to: IPA in the TCAI project, TZEDEK in piloting the EQUIP project, ACDEP and a number of private basic schools in Tamale.

As one of the ways of extending the services of the LDC to other parts of Ghana, a workshop was organized in the Upper East Region to advertise the LDC, the services available, who can access services and how to access the services. The workshop was very successful. Participants who were drawn from the Ghana Education Service, the mission education units, NGOs, CBOs, CSOs and private institutions were happy to learn of a center like the LDC that can support them in their efforts to providing quality education. A number of the private institutions pledged to contact the LDC to access services especially in the area of training teaching staff to improve quality of teaching and learning.

The LDC exist to provide services and technical support to education institutions, NGOs, CBOs, CSOs and all education stakeholders to better quality of education in Ghana. You can contact the LDC at sfl@vodafone.com.gh or visit the School for Life website (www.schoolforlifegh.org) for more information. Join us, lets partner to make education a more viable and prosperous venture for the future generations.

EQUIP ORGANIZES REFRESHER TRAINING WORKSHOP FOR TEACHERS

By: Abdul-Mumin Ahmed, Communications and Advocacy Officer, School for Life

       Participants demonstrating how to use an A4 paper to design a box

The education Quality Initiative Project (EQUIP) is co-funded by Comic Relief and Tzedek. In collaboration with Tzedek, School for Life currently implements the project in four deprived districts (Saboba, Cgereponi, Savelugu/Nanton and Kumbungu) in the Northern Region of Ghana. The main aim of the project is to contribute significantly to improving quality basic education in Ghana through collaboration with key stakeholders in the Ghana Education Service. Importantly, the project aims at equipping teachers in very deprived schools with the requisite knowledge and skills to enable them support pupils to achieve the required learning outcomes.

To achieve the set goals and objectives, School for Life organized an initial training workshop in 2013 for Head Teachers of beneficiary schools and selected Circuit Supervisors of the implementing districts.

Following the initial training, evidence from monitoring visits to EQUIP beneficiary schools revealed that the initiative  is indeed significantly improving quality of teaching and learning in schools. To consolidate the knowledge gained by teachers in the initial training, there was the need for a refresher training. Thus, a three day refresher training session was organized for Head Teachers of beneficiary Schools and selected Circuit Supervisors of the four implementing districts. The refresher workshop which took place between 9th and 11th of March, 2014 was purposely conducted to reorient and train participants on very pertinent issues that guide and support the implementation of the Project. The workshop, provided the opportunity for participants to share their experiences regarding the implementation of the project. Other crucial issues such as supervision in EQUIP, roles and responsibilities of SMCs, PTAs, teachers as well as Head Teachers of EQUIP beneficiary schools and gender issues in school management were discussed elaborately. 

The workshop deepened the knowledge and skills of Teachers and Circuit Supervisors on especially the use of Activity Based Learning Approaches and introduction to EQUIP sample teaching and learning materials.