Over 2000 out-of-school children have been enrolled in 20 wing schools established in deprived and hard-to-reach communities in the East Gonja district of the Northern Region.
The Wing Schools were established under a project christened the “Christmas Calendar Project” (CCP) being implemented by IBIS in Ghana, a Danish organisation that works to create a just world for children, youth and adults.
The project is aimed at creating opportunities for children in those communities to claim their right to quality basic education as spelt out in the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) two and other global development targets.
Already, IBIS had through an earlier project, known as the Alliance for Change in Education (ACE), worked with communities in Gusheigu and Karaga and other partners to establish 56 wing schools through which over 10,800 out-of-school children had the opportunity to be enrolled in school.
Wing Schools are simple structures, usually a pavilion, where children can sit under for classes from Kindergarten to Primary three.
The children are enrolled in the Wing School because they are unable to journey to the next community where there is a school because of distance.
But for the wing schools, many children would not be able to have access to education simply because the only school around is in a distant community.
The coordinator of the CCP, Eric Kavaarpuo told the media that a baseline study conducted by IBIS had revealed that over 9600 children in the East Gonja district were not in school, a situation, he noted, that called for drastic efforts to provide hope for those kids.
“GES has provided available materials from their stores to the new schools, including text books, teachers’ lesson notebooks, class registers etc and IBIS has supplemented GES provision with exercise books, textbooks, language materials, chalkboards and other materials to ensure the smooth operation of these schools, since classes started a few weeks ago,” he said.
“Together with the GES, we have also recruited and trained 60 youth who have been deployed to serve as teachers in these schools and they are entitled to a monthly stipend,” he further mentioned.
One unique aspect of the project, Mr Kavaarpup noted, was the use of local language as a means of instruction in these Wing Schools. “The predominant languages identified by the baseline in these communities are Gonja, Likpakpaaln and Dagbanli.
In each community, the predominant language would be used,” he said. The Coordinating Director for the East Gonja district assembly, Mr Abdul Karim Yahaya Iddrisu said the idea of wing schools was very timely and appropriate and commended IBIS for initiating such an intervention.
IBIS in Ghana is one of the NGOs in the country that are working to help the country meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on achieving universal primary education by 2015, as well as the Education for All goals.