THE GHANA COMPLEMENTARY BASIC EDUCATION PROGRAMME HOLDS A REFLECTION MEETING ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CBE TLMs

By: Abdul-Mumin Ahmed

The Ghana Complementary Basic Education (GCBE) Programme is a nation-wide programme that provides complementary education to out-of-school children within the ages of 8 and 14 years in underserved and hard to reach communities in Ghana. 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. Implementation of GCBE started in October 2013 in 32 districts in Northern, Upper East, Upper West and the Brong Ahafo Regions.

Having made significant progress in the implementation of the programme for six months, key implementing partners and stakeholders met to reflect and discuss the effectiveness of the CBE teaching and learning materials and the CBE trainings. The purpose of the reflection meeting was to; identify challenges faced by Facilitators in the use of the CBE TLMs and how these challenges could be addressed in the next cycle, review the effectiveness of the training of trainers’ workshops and to discuss how to improve the teaching and learning materials and training workshops under the complementary basic education programnme.

The two days reflection meeting, organized by the GCBE Management Unit had in attendance personnel form the Ministry of Education (MoE), the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Implementing Partners; including School for Life, PRONET, Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation (GLLBT) and Link Community Development (LCD). Dr Leslie Casely-Hayford of the CBE management unit lamented that Ghana currently commits 12 percent of its income to education yet only 2 percent of primary 1 to primary 3pupils are able to attain the required proficiency levels. This phenomenon, she said is unacceptable and must be addressed with concerted efforts by education stakeholders.

The meeting achieved its objectives. Major challenges that confront facilitators, especially with the use of the CBE Manuals and TLMs were discussed. More importantly, specific inconsistencies regarding the orthography of some of the languages used were identified

Discussions in respect of these challenges provided the requisite impetus for improvement of the manuals and TLMs so as to improve learning outcomes of pupils.

Preparations for the second phase of the programme have started with the Request for Proposals (RfP) by the Management Unit. It is envisioned that the outcome of the meeting will contribute significantly to improving implementation of the Programme in the next cycle.

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.

School for Life undertakes Leadership and Advocacy Training for Female Local Committee Members

By Abdul-Mumin

As part of School for Life’s mission of working to improve and sustain access to and quality of basic education in Ghana through functional literacy and advocacy as a means to address poverty, underdevelopment and gender inequality; advocacy and leadership training is being organized for Local female committee members across three districts (Tolon, East Gonja and Nanumba-north districts) . The Local Committees were set up by School for Life in the operational communities to oversee the school for life program in their respective communities. Each committee has five people with a minimum of three females. 

The purpose of the leadership and advocacy training is to imbue in the female committee members the requisite skills and capacities needed to take up leadership roles in their communities and districts. Importantly, the training was also meant to encourage females to rise up to the challenge and advocate strongly towards addressing the needs of the communities. It is only when the majority of people in our communities and districts consciously advocate and influence policy initiatives that their real needs and problems can be addressed. Because of this, and in view of the overriding fact that females constitute more than fifty percent of people in our communities, the training was designed purposely for the female committee members.

Being a part of the training session in the Kali zone in the Tolon district, the women were very informed on the topic and shared with each other the strategies to use in advocacy and the numerous benefits they could accrue from advocacy works. These benefits, one participant summarized as “promoting unity, facilitating development and ensuring peace and stability.” These amazing revelations further consolidated School for Life’s belief that when women are informed, empowered and given the chance to lead development process, they are indeed capable and will lead us to our dream land.

This experience and many others are the reasons why we encourage everyone to join us and join hands towards building the capacity of women in leadership and advocacy to promote national development. 

Abdul-Mumin joins the School for Life Team!

My name is Abdul-Mumin Ahmed, and I am the newly appointed Communications and Advocacy Officer for the School for Life Program. In my new position here at School for Life, I will be in charge of managing the School for Life web page and the School for Life page on Facebook, supporting SfL’s Pedagogical research officer to undertake advocacy based research, improving School for Life’s relationship with the media and development partners, assisting in the development of the School for Life’s newsletter, organizing and coordinating advocacy capacity building for School for Life field staff and Monitoring advocacy interventions at the local level.

As a new member of the School for Life family, I find this position an extremely challenging one, especially because it is a newly created position with a lot of expectations.  Being the first person to take it up, I am greatly challenged to put up my best in projecting the image and good works of School for Life. In view of the nature of the position, I will be working closely to support the Deputy Manager for Advocacy and Gender, Lawrencia Dakurah-Abakisi.

I was born in Walewale, the district capital of the west mamprusi district, in Northern Ghana; where I undertook my primary and junior secondary school education. I continued senior secondary school education in business senior high school in Tamale and proceeded to Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology(KNUST) where I  studied BSc Development Planning. While studying at KNUST, I was a member of the KNUST students’ parliament, Ghana Association of Student Planners-KNUST and a prominent member of the Student’s Welfare Project. My participation in a number of advocacy works at Students’ Welfare Project lead me to nursing a dream of working in advocacy interventions. This dream,  is what triggered me to taking up the role here at School for Life.

My coming here, in my estimation, appropriately fulfils the purpose of the adage that holds that “we must always be fueled by our passion, beyond all other considerations”. My enduring passion for development works back in KNUST urged me to take up an internship with TCAI (Teacher Community Assistant Initiative), a project that was jointly implemented by School for Life and Innovations for Poverty Action across selected districts in Ghana. The project sought to determine the best method of remedial education or otherwise that could improve learning levels in basic schools. My involvement in the project continued after I completed school and ended in 2013 when the project implementation came to an end. I also engaged myself with Camfed-Ghana (an NGO that supports female education in a number of districts in Ghana) as an assistant in the Education Programme Office.

Having attained these fits of experience in development works, I finally decided to settle with School for Life as Communications and Advocacy Officer for two crucial reasons. Firstly, to continue the pursuance of development works that helps people build their potential through education. And importantly, to fulfill my long nurtured dream of working in advocacy interventions.

Service to the Nation: Musah Alhassan

School for Life is currently running a trial to use National Service Personnel to lead our community based classes.  Classes led by community members (known as facilitators) have been a core component of School for Life’s values since inception, but as our program expands we are seeking to trial some innovative measures to ensure all out of school children in Ghana can achieve their potential though education.

A couple of months ago, twelve National Service Personnel, all of whom are recent graduates of education programmes at universities in Ghana were posted to our organisation.  After undergoing training with our volunteer facilitators they were posted to communities across the Savelugu Nanton district in the Northern Region.  This morning we met with them to hear about their experiences so far, and some of the challenges they are facing. 

A lot of challenges were raised by the group, as well as some successes.  One of the most successful experiences to date was shared with us by Musah Alhassan, about his posting in the Chahiyili community.  Musah, a recent Diploma of Education Graduate from the University of Winneba, moved into the Chahiyilli community soon after his posting.  In just a few months, he has established himself as an important and respected member of the community there.  In addition to taking the School for Life classes in the afternoons, he spends his mornings volunteering as a teacher at the nearby formal school.

He was honest about the challenges he had faced, but also positive about the experience.  He told the group that if he hadn’t lived in the community he would never have understood all the reasons why the learners he teaches struggle to go to school.  He gave us one example of a girl child who was regularly missing classes.  He eventually went to see her mother, who explained that she was discouraging her from attending as she needed the girl to help take care of baby due to be born in a few months’ time, and also feared she would not be able to afford the school fees should the child wish to continue her education after the programme.  Musah was able to convince the mother to let the girl attend, and promised to help her apply for a scholarship when the time to attend formal school came.

When congratulating Musah for his hard work after our meeting, he surprised us when he explained the source of his passion for his work.  Having grown up in a community without a school, Musah did not expect to benefit from education.  From a young age, he helped to support his family by taking care of animals.  However, in 1998, he joined a School for Life class in his community!  Musah remembers that the classes back then were not like they are today – his class was held during the night, because at the time there were so few teachers available to teach in his mother tongue, Dagbani, that they had to travel from far away after they had taught elsewhere.

Following the nine months of the School for Life Programme, Musah integrated into the formal school at Gushigu, where he continued on to Junior High School.  After this, he went to Tamale Polytechnic to study welding and fabrication.  However, Musah’s passion for education led him to dream of purusing future studies in education and to become a teacher.  He told me “Because I came from School for Life, I put my efforts into my work in the community.  I want my brothers to benefit from it.  I want to inform the image (for my learners), and shown them that I was able to attend future educational institutions because of the opportunity School for Life gave to me.”

 

By Courtney Irwin

School for Life/Tzedek Education Quality Initiative Project (EQUIP)

By Abdulai Imoro, EQUIP Project Coordinator, School for Life

 The EQUIP Programme seeks to improve the quality of education in selected schools in Northern Region.  The program is aimed at improving learning outcomes in schools; cultivating reading habits in children; promoting independent learning; and building confidence in teachers though the following interventions:

·       Training of selected teachers in learner- centered, mother – tongue, gender sensitive teaching, and the creation of teaching and learning materials from local sources and teaching of reading and writing skills

·       Training of head teachers in aspects of school management

·       Training of Ghana Education Service school supervisors to perform their roles more effectively

·       Provision of materials of various sorts to the schools to promote the culture of reading among children

·       Conducting competitions and assessments to test performance and achievements

·       Organize orientation workshop for SMC/PTA Executive members on their roles

The project seeks to integrate solutions to the inhibitors and shortcomings that prevent the achievement of quality education in rural primary schools, building on solutions that have been tried and proven but have not been previously brought together in a single programme. In order for EQUIP to be able to give the treatment above to beneficiary schools, the following strategies are used:

·       Phonic/syllabic approach

·       Use of games to teach both Literacy and Numeracy

·       Child- centered approach

·       Word problems to teach numeracy

·       Use of songs and rhymes in teaching both Literacy and Numeracy

·       Use of relevant teaching and learning materials to explain basic concepts.

The School for Life/Tzedek EQUIP programme started as a pilot project in Saboba and Cheriponi Districts. During the pilot, Ten schools were chosen as EQUIP schools in each of the pilot Districts. After the pilot, the project extended its coverage to include two new districts; i.e. Savelugu District and Kumbungu District were added to the beneficiary districts of EQUIP.

Whiles the project extended its coverage by adding more districts, it increased the number of beneficiary schools in each of the existing districts. Thus, the number of beneficiary schools was increased from ten during the pilot to twenty new schools, in the existing districts. In all, twenty new schools were added in each of Saboba and Cheriponi districts when it extended its coverage to new districts. 

EQUIP is a Comic Relief funded project which seeks to complement the efforts of the Government in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service (GES), School for Life, and the Cheriponi, Saboba, Savelugu and Kumbungu District Assemblies.  The key stakeholders/partners of EQUIP include; The Ghana Education Directorates of beneficiary districts, District Assemblies of Beneficiary districts, heads of schools, SMC/PTA, teachers as well as pupils.  Whiles the above institutions/personalities are partnering, School for Life is an Implementing partner of Tzedek, which initiates policies/programs with partners and implements the projects on the ground.

The School for Life/Tzedek EQUIP is implemented by Project Staff made up of four (4) District Coordinators, a Project Coordinator and Project Manager. All district coordinators report to the Project Coordinator who in turn reports to the Project Manager. The Management of School for Life, exercises oversight responsibility over all EQUIP project staff.

In order to determine the success of the programme, baseline, mid-line and end-line studies will be conducted, which will include comparisons to other approaches; e.g. teacher training, learning outcomes by learners in a control group which receives no quality education strategies.  Within these approaches, several elements will be tested. There will be six elements including;

·       Pupils’ phonic knowledge

·       Pupils’ alphabetic knowledge

·       Pupils ability to read simple text

·       Pupils’ ability to read and comprehend

·       Pupils ability to recognize numbers

·       Pupils’ ability to do simple calculations

Results of these evaluations will be incorporated into future programme development efforts.

 

Teachers participating in teacher training sessions

 

Teacher delivers findings from group discussions to the class

Group work encourages participation