About 1,200 children of school-going age who were out of school in the Pusiga district of the Upper East Region will soon return to school.

The children are going through a nine-month Complementary Basic Education Programme (CBE) which will prepare them to go back into regular schools.

The CBE programme is a functional literacy programme by the Government of Ghana and its development partners for children between the ages of 8 and 14 years who do not have access to formal school through  literacy classes in their own communities.

The intervention is in line with the Ghana government’s effort to meet the Millennium Development Goal 2; which demands of countries to make it possible for children of school going age to have universal primary education.

The CBE programme is implemented by civil society actors in partnership with communities with oversight responsibility by the District Education Offices, District Education Oversight Committees (DEOC) and District Assemblies. In the Upper East Region, Afrikids Ghana, a child rights centered NGO is government’s partner for the programme.

At the launch of the programme, in the Pusiga district, a facilitator of the programme, Emmanuel Awini said the children who cannot speak English due to their long stay away from regular schools, had successfully learned how to pronounce vowel sounds, which is key to their learning to read.

Salamatu Sulemana

For 13-year-old, Salamatu Sulemana, the CBE programme is her chance to get back to school. She dropped out of school at age 8 because her parents said they did not have money to cater for her education.

However, the CBE programme gave orientation to parents including Salamatu’s and they are now willing to support her in whatever way they can.

Despite her age, Salamatu does not think it is too late to start school from Primary 1.

She told Joy News “I am very happy they introduced this programme. Now, some of us can go back to school and become better people in the future”.

Programmes Manager for Afrikids Ghana, said the NGO is doing more work to ensure girl-child education in the Pusiga district.