Ghana’s Nanumba South District has broken records and barriers to establish four all-girls’ classes in the 2015/16 cycle of our complementary basic education programme– and the girls are flourishing!

This is the first time that as many as four classes made up of only females has been constituted in one district.  Over three quarters of the students are achieving “very good” ratings in their reading, writing and numeracy, and attendance and punctuality is excellent.

Aware of the difficulties confronting girls’ education in the Nanumba South District in particular and the Northern region in general, our partners School For Life have made great gains through a concerted outreach effort to communities, calling on them to give their children a second chance to be education- in particular the girls. The School for Life ​team was supported by the CBE Local Committees, who went out into the communities to search for out-of-school children, identifying a high number of girls within the communities who were out of school. The process was reinforced by home visits to encourage both the parents and the girls to enroll and be regular in their attendance to the CBE classes.

Some of the girls from these classes stepped out in pride at the 59th Ghana Independence Anniversary parade recently to promote the programme and encourage other communities to enroll their girls in the CBE programme.

The result of the hard work and effective collaboration among our partners and stakeholders was the constitution of four all girls’ classes in the Tampoaya, Nakohagu, Nassamba and Pudua comuniities in the Nanumba South District.

This is a fantastic success for the CBE programme in Ghana, and demonstrates the importance and value of working closely with communities to achieve the outcomes that they want.

Our partners for this project are Associates for Change and ​Education Development Trust. With thanks to Dasana Andani, District Co-ordinator Nanumba South, for this update.