The children were trained under the ActionAid's Complementary Basic Education (CBE) programme, which aimed at identifying and training out of school children in deprived communities to be enrolled in the formal school sector.

The CBE programme afforded these out-of-school children, who were beyond school going age (eight to 14), the opportunity to acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills within a period of nine months in their mother-tongues to facilitate their enrolment into the formal school system.

The Ghana Institute of Linguistics Literacy and Bible Translation (BILLBT) in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service (GES, implemented the CBE programme as part of its mandate to develop local languages.

The beneficiary children comprised 911 males and 1,086 females with 80 classrooms used to run the programme throughout the nine month period in 35 Dagbani and 45 Likpukpan languages within the Gushegu District.

Mr Abdul Razak, a representative of the Gushiegu Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) who performed the opening ceremony, said it was the responsibility of the Municipal Assembly to provide infrastructure and other amenities for improved quality education in schools.

The commended the ActionAid Ghana for the initiatives to fund education in the District and assured that the Municipality would continue to work closely with development for improved education.

He warned parents against the practice of engaging the children in the farms all day to the disadvantage of learning, which was impeding their progress. Mr Razak said a great future lay before them as children and advised them to continue to learn in order to enjoy the fruits of their labour.

Mr Iddi Modow, an Assistant Director in-charge of Human Resource, Ghana Education Service, stressed the need for continuous sensitization in the communities to tackle the issue of stigmatization and attitudes of parents towards the education of their children.

Mr Modow mentioned some of the roles GES played in the implementation of the programme as animation of communities for CBE learners and the training of facilitators and training of school management committees and local committee members on their roles and responsibilities.

Others included the orientation of head teachers and teachers on the programme, supervision of classes and assessment of learners for placement at the appropriate levels in formal schools. On the positive impacts of the programme, he said the enrolment had increased tremendously as many children who were not in school had now been enrolled and that more schools were opened in communities that were not accessible to the pupils.

He said intermittent training sessions were also organized to build the capacity of facilitators on the use of CBE methodologies and local committees while SMCs were also formed to manage the classes, since CBE classes were owned by the community members.

Madam Mumuni Alia, Action Aid Ghana Programme Officer, thanked the Municipal Assembly, GES, chiefs, project communities, and other stakeholders for the support throughout the programme.

She said within the first cycle the programme operated in 97 farming communities and enrolled 3,050 out of school children and that out of the figure, 1,585 were females and 1,465 being males and created 122 CBE classes.

She called on the Ghana Education Service and the Municipal Assembly to continue with the programme in order to reduce out of school children situation in the Municipality. Madam Alia said as a result the GES had established four schools in four farming communities to absorb learners around the area.