GES DIRECTOR SHEDS TEARS OF JOY DURING A UNICEF REVIEW MEETING

By: Issahaku Ibrahim, CBE Coordinator, Savelugu District

The Director of Education for Komenda, Edina, Abirem and Aguafo (KEEA) District, Mr. Gabriel K. Gademor shed tears during a UNICEF review meeting in Tamale.  The two days review meeting was held at the Arewa Sunshine hotel in Tamale on Tuesday February 25 and Wednesday February 26, 2014. 

The meeting was the first of its kind to be organized by UNICEF under the UNICEF-sponsored CBE programme and brought together officials of UNICEF, School for Life Management, Directors of Education, National Service Coordinators and District Coordinators of the CBE program. The purpose of the event was to bring together key actors of the UNICEF-sponsored Complementary Basic Education (CBE) programme in the country to review implementation of the Program and the way forward.

As part of the 2 days programme, the group undertook a field visit to a CBE class at Jenjorikukuo, a community 6   Kilometers south-east of Savelugu, the District Capital. In presenting his report of the field visit at a plenary session, Mr. Gabriel K. Gademor shed tears over what he described as great and incredible performance of children who after only 4 months of literacy lessons were able to recognize 3 letter words, read and do simple arithmetics. He was particularly overwhelmed by the ability of the children to pronounce and write unknown words and names including his name which was not familiar in the children’s setting.  

The Director fumed with anger comparing the output of regular classroom teachers in his district to the CBE Facilitators, who are not trained teachers and are not paid salaries.  He lamented that unlike Facilitators, some teachers in the formal schools with all the monthly salaries and logistics could not teach children up to class 6 to read and pronounce 4 letter words.

The CBE model, He concluded is a huge success even though the nine month cycle is yet to be completed. This and many others go a long way to confirm how effective the Ghana Complementary Basic Education Programme is in making children literate after only nine months of instruction.