224 Community Volunteers from Six Districts undergo training under CBE Program


About two hundred and 24 community volunteers drawn from six selected districts of the Northern and Upper East Regions have undergone a 20 day intensive residual training under the Ghana Complementary Basic Education, CBE, Program, spearheaded by Afrikids Ghana, a child rights NGO. 

The volunteers are from Bongo, Talensi, Nabdam Bawku, and Pusiga, of the Upper East as well as the Karaga district of the Northern Region. 

Equipped with requisite skills in teaching, the volunteers are expected to reach out to five thousand 600 out of school children in the project areas through a nine month class in their mother tongue, after which they will be transitioned into formal schools in their various communities. 

The CBE Program which is in its third phase was initiated by the Government of Ghana under the Ministry of Education with funding from the UK DFID and the USAID.  

At a closing ceremony of the residual training of facilitators held at Pusu-Namongo, the Country Director of Afrikids, Nicholas Kumah acknowledged the support of the assemblies in the implementation of the CBE Program and called for additional support in the area of funding. 

He also acknowledged the continuous partnership of the ten CBE implementing partners, particularly GES, stressing that their level of commitment was an indication of an effective outcome of the project. 

Mr Kumah was hopeful that provisions for CBE project by GES including uniforms and other school supplies will continue and urged circuit supervisors to capture CBE classes as part of their monitoring. 

Mr Kumah reminded the master trainers of their core duties and said two more refresher trainings will be held this December and April, 2016. 

This, he noted, is intended to make the work of the facilitators easy. 

Available statistics indicates that the country has more than 120, thousand children out of school children between the ages of 8-14 with the majority coming from the Northern Savanna zone. 

It is against this backdrop that government developed the CBE program, as a conduit to get them into formal school after a period of complementary basic education. 

The project works by forming community committees from which facilitators are trained to provide the transitional education. 

Beneficiaries are made to attend classes with support from local but trained facilitators who give them basic education using local languages such as Gurune, Kusaal and Dagbanli. 

The children will then be supported by GES, to enroll with schools in their respective localities.

GBC