By: Abdul-Mumin Ahmed, Communications Officer
The Management Unit, of
the Ghana Complementary Basic Education Programme, organized a regional
workshop in Tamale on ensuring smooth transition and successful integration of
the CBE learners into the formal primary schools. The workshop which took place
on the 19th of May 2014, and had the attendance of District Chief
Executives, District Coordinating Directors and the District Directors of
Education in the CBE beneficiary Districts, as well as Implementing Partners of
the CBE Programme, was necessary, following the eight months implementation of
the programme into the first cycle. Having implemented CBE in deprived
districts for close to the end of the first cycle, it become very important for
stakeholders to meet and discuss on how to get learners who will be graduating
and will be integrated into the formal school system by September, 2014.
The Ghana Complementary
Basic Education (GCBE) Programme is a nation-wide programme that provides
complementary education in the mother tongue to out-of-school children within
the ages of 8 and 14 years in underserved and hard to reach communities in
Ghana for a nine month cycle. With the support of the Department for
International Development (DFID), the Government of Ghana partners with key
Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and other education stakeholders to
implement complementary education in targeted districts in Ghana. DFID is
sponsoring the programme for the initial three years (2013 to 2016) with the
aim that the Government of Ghana will take over sponsorship of the programme
after 2016. Preparations towards implementation of GCBE for the first cycle started
in October 2013 in 32 districts in Northern, Upper East, Upper West and the
Brong Ahafo Regions. Evidence from implementation of the programme by SfL,
where it gains its root from reveals that out-of-school children after undergoing
this cycle of training, becomes functionally literate in numeracy and literacy
and are able to join at least primary 3 of the formal school.
Coming to the end of
the first cycle, it becomes an overwhelming issue of concern to stakeholders on
how to ensure that these learners do not graduate from the CBE programme and
become school drop outs, as a good number of the communities do not still have
access to formal schools. Stakeholders
deliberated at length on the many barriers that potentially could bar learners
from getting integrated into school. Notable among the identified barriers
included; socio-cultural demand side barriers, child labour, household
migration, long distances to schools in most deprived communities and
inadequate teachers and school infrastructure. For example, a total of 932
communities comprising of 176 CBE classes have no access to primary schools
within a 3km radius and over 4,573 learners do not have access to primary
schools within a 5km radius. In view of the barriers to transition of learners
into regular classrooms, participants of the workshop, worked in groups and
devised short term pragmatic strategies to smoothen successful integration of
learners into formal schools. Some short term strategies such as providing
learners with support services such as bicycles to aid transportation,
provision of needy students’ scholarship to deprived CBE learners and enrolment
campaigns and awareness creation among parents on issues of transition and
integration were identified as key short term practical strategies that will be
used by districts to ensure that the education of the CBE learners does not end
after the CBE programme. It is thus, envisioned that implementation of these
strategies by educational actors in the districts will result in complete integration
of all CBE learners into regular classrooms. This is ultimately directed
towards ensuring that all out-of-school children have the opportunity of
attaining the highest level of education they are capable of achieving.
