MOE, 3 NGOs sign deal to bring 70,000 out-of-school children back to school
The Education Ministry (MOE) through the Ghana Education Outcomes Project (GEOP) on Wednesday signed a contract with three service providers (educational advocacy Non-Governmental Organisations) to bring 70,000 out-of-school children back to school.
The three service providers; Street Child UK, Plan International and School for Life Education Outcomes Project are being funded by the MOE in collaboration with its development partners with a grant facility of $25.5 million from the Global Partnership for Results-Based Approaches (GPRBA) with additional funding for the Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP).
Mr Divine Ayidzoe, Acting Chief Director, signed on behalf of the Education Ministry while the leadership of the three service providers signed for their respective institutions.
The tenets of the contract expect the service providers to help bring improvement in the quality of education in low-performing basic schools in the country, build the human capital index (amount of capital knowledge children have by the age of 18) of children by letting them acquire basic numeracy and literacy skills
Additionally, the contract requires the service providers to help improve learning outcomes for the targeted population by re-integrating out-of-school children (OOSC) into mainstream beneficiary schools, strengthen the use of resources efficiently, introduce new capacity-building systems for teachers or facilitators in beneficiary schools and improve retention in the beneficiary schools over a period of two years.
The Ag. Chief Director indicated that the project which is additional funding for the Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project had the theme “Getting all children educated through support to schools and communities”.
He was upbeat that with good collaboration between the Ministry, the service providers and other stakeholders, many children especially those who were out of school would go back to school to benefit from education for their own good as well as shape their dreams so they contribute towards the development of the nation.
Mr Ayidzoe pledged to create an enabling environment for the service providers and any other stakeholder in the education space to contribute towards improving education in the country.
He urged the service providers to bring all their expertise to bear to help bring improvement into the education sector as well as improve enrollment in schools through various innovations.
The GEOP is aimed at helping improve the quality of education in selected low-performing basic schools and strengthen education sector equity and accountability in Ghana.
The project has two broad components namely the Rural Component and the Urban Component with the Rural Component targeting 60,000 out-of-school children (OOSC) in rural Ghana specifically from selected districts in the Northern, North East, Savannah, Bono, and Oti Regions with a high prevalence of OOSC.