THE WING SCHOOL MODEL OF EDUCATION

Transcription

1 THE WING SCHOOL MODEL OF EDUCATION

2 From the ACE Project Coordinator...5 Introduction...6 The Context of Wing Schools in Gushegu and Karaga districts...8 The Wing School Model How the model evolved...9 Attributes of ACE Wing Schools...11 Methodology and Pedagogical Approaches of the ACE Wing School Model...12 ACE Gender Strategy...14 ACE Governance Strategy...15 Steps to implementing the wing school model...16 ACE Stakeholders Wing Schools increase Quality and Access to Education...19 Replicate the Wing School Model...21 Costed Wing School Model: Cost Per Wing School...36

3 From the ACE Project Coordinator I have travelled to the wing school project Steering Committee, it has been communities and seen the successes a slow process getting all 200 teachers being demonstrated by the schools and and over 8,000 pupils of the 56 schools communities. Children are fed at home absorbed into the public school system. and given some food to carry to school Fortunately almost all 56 former schools for lunch. They also carry along with are now integrated into the public school them water in plastic bottles for system but the teachers. drinking. That is how parents have been sensitized to support their children in It has also been difficult getting GES to school without the Ghana School come to terms with the Wing School Feeding Programme! model as one of the solutions to providing access to education for The schools are community-initiated. dispersed hard-to-reach and out of reach Granted the opportunity to enrol their children using untrained teachers, children in school, the communities put mother tongue instruction and up their own classroom structures, community initiative. Nevertheless, the identify their own kinsmen and women ACE project stands on the edge of who have graduated from Senior High something new and remarkable School to train and teach their children in occasioned by the Wing Schools in 56 their own language. The community communities of Gushegu and Karaga teachers have been trained by the ACE districts of the Northern Region of project in collaboration with GES and Ghana. alliance partners, to teach using the Likpakpaaln and Dagbanli languages as This publication is to prompt you to do a mediums of instruction in a learner- sober reflection on the teeming numbers centred, participatory and gender- of children in our communities and sensitive manner. streets without education. What does the future hold for them? Can we There are however some challenges. The confidently bequeath Ghana to a future Danida-funded ACE project will not be generation without education? Whose around for too long. The 56 Wing Schools reality is this? Whose responsibility? have to be fully owned by the District Assemblies (DA) and GES of the Gushegu I believe the time to think through this and Karaga districts. In spite of the two dilemma and take a proactive stance is DAs and GES being members of the now! Eric Kavaarpuo 5

4 Introduction Ghana faces a dilemma on the road to civil society effort at expanding access to MDG 2 and Education for All (EfA) by education with the view to ensuring After missing the Gender Parity universal primary education. target for Basic Education in 2005, Ghana risk missing the deadline for Nevertheless, the number of out-ofachieving Universal Primary Education school children in Ghana continuous to and Education for All by the year be in excess of 2 million children (GSS, To this end, radical accelerated access 2010 Population and Housing Census). to education using innovative strategies The challenge of out-of-school children for equity and expanded access to is one of several challenges facing the education targeting out-of-school and education sector: there are socioout of reach children are required to cultural disparities in access and quality, follow through the achievement of significant and stubborn regional both national and global education differences, poor quality of learning, benchmarks and targets. inefficient use of resources and insufficient measures to ensure that Many children continue to be denied schools and administrators are access to basic education due to their accountable for delivering the education g e o g ra p h i c l o c a t i o n o r s o c i a l services in line with expectations circumstances; fortunately, Ghana's (World Bank/GoG, 2011). Education Strategic Plan (ESP) , under the access, equity and Teachers are the proxy for quality welfare objectives recognises this and education but teacher supply continues proposes alternative strategies beyond to be a huge problem since there is an the formal schooling system. annual attrition of professional teachers of about 10,000 with only about 9,000 Between 2002/03 and 2009/10 access to replacing them from the colleges of basic education in Ghana was given a education in Ghana. The Ghana major boost, and this was evidenced by Education Service (GES) threshold increased enrolment at the primary population for the provision of schools, school level by over 50%. This has been legitimate as it is for logistical reasons, made possible by several educational has the effect of excluding many children interventions, including the capitation from schooling, and in the long term grant scheme, the school feeding renders the criteria for providing formal programme, infrastructural expansion, schools counterproductive. opening up of new schools through the complementarity of state, NGOs and 6

5 Fortunately, some innovations Service (Northern regional geared towards targeting out- office and district offices of of-school, hard-to-reach and Gushegu and Karaga), the out of reach children include District Assemblies of Gushegu the long-tested School for Life and Karaga, Bagabaga College functional Literacy model and o f Ed u cation, N o r t h e r n IBIS's Alliance for Change in N e t w o r k f o r E d u c a t i o n Education Wing School model. D e v e l o p m e n t ( N N E D ), Both models are geared Integrated Social Development towards expanding access to Centre (ISODEC) and two local education for underprivileged c o m m u n i t y - b a s e d children irrespective of their o r g a n i s a t i o n s n a m e l y geographic location. Tisongmitaba Development Association (TIDA) and Songsim The ACE Project Integrated Development The Alliance for Change in Association (SONIDA). IBIS in Education (ACE) is a Danida- Ghana is the host organization funded project. Three Danish of the alliance. organisations (the Ghana Friendship Groups in Denmark, The Wing School concept has the Danish Teachers' Union and been modelled in deprived IBIS) and their Ghanaian communities of Karaga and counterparts decided to walk Gushegu districts of the the talk in 2007 by piloting the Northern Region of Ghana. It is Wing School concept as a a community-initiated lower strategy for targeting out-of- primary school of Kindergarten school children in hard-to- to primary three and therefore reach/out of reach, dispersed meant to be attached to a fullsettlements with the view to fledged functioning existing learning for sharing and school. It is estimated that replication. upon completing primary 3, children from wing schools will The extended members of the be grown enough to walk the alliance of Danish organisations distance to the nearest public are the Ghana Education school. 7

6 The Context of Wing Schools in Gushegu and Karaga districts he Gushegu and Karaga districts Therefore, of a total of 32,257 school age are located in the North-Eastern children in the Gushegu district, 47% of Tpart of the Northern Region of the children were still out of school and Ghana and together had a population of located mostly in outlandish communities 125,430 in 2007 (Ghana Statistical described as the darkest spots of the Service, Population and Housing Census, district. Similarly in the Karaga district, 2000) and now have a population of 17,153 (male 9,695 and female 7,458) 201,129, (GSS, 2010 Population and children of the same age category were Housing Census). found to be in school whilst 11,253 children were out of school. Of a total of Before 2005, the two districts were one 28,406 children of school-age in the district and were classified among the 61 district, about 40% of them were still out deprived districts of Ghana and least of school. performing in relation to education performance indicators of GES. The The above statistics provides an Education Sector Performance reports of opportunity to the GES and District 2008 and 2009 further categorized the Assemblies to adopt and replicate the two districts among the 47 hard-to-reach good lessons and practices of the ACE districts of Ghana. wing school model to target all out-ofschool children. In addition to the general poor teaching and learning outcomes as evidenced by The districts also suffer a high attrition successive Basic Education Certificate rate of professionals of all sectors, Examinations (BECE), a school mapping by particularly teachers, and hardly have up ACE and GES in August 2010 revealed to 300 trained teachers at a time to teach huge numbers of children who were still the schools. For instance, in 2010 no out-of school in the two districts. In the teacher in Gushegu was qualified for the Gushegu district, whereas 17,105 (Male National Teachers' Awards because none 9,780 and Female 7,325) children aged of the teachers present at the time had between 4 and 14 years were in school, served up to the mandatory 5 years to 15,152 (male 7,592 and female 7,560) qualify for the award. children were yet out of school in that district. 8

7 The Wing School Model How the model evolved How the wing school model evolvedthe Wing School concept is not new to Ghana's education system. Within GES practice, there have been isolated cases of some schools being designated feeder schools, satellite schools or a stream of an existing school. The ACE project sought to implement an existing concept to serve both as a strategy for providing education at the doorsteps of children in deprived hard-to-reach communities and as a package of pedagogical approaches to delivering quality education. The model is thus underpinned by low-cost but high impact approaches, ranging from community initiative and ownership of schools, recruitment of Senior High School leavers as teachers from communities where their services are needed, the practice of mother tongue instruction, to the use of learner-centred, gender-sensitive and participatory teaching approaches in the teaching and learning process. What is a wing school? As conceived by the Ghana Education Service (GES) and modified by ACE, a wing school is an extension of an existing school where children are enrolled in Kindergarten 1 to primary class 3 because their communities are hard-to-reach or are beyond the reach of GES criteria for setting up full-fledged primary schools. The concept estimates that upon completing primary 3, the children will be grown enough to walk the distance to the nearest school to continue from primary 4. What the ACE has delivered The rationale for the ACE wing school model is to further both national and global development benchmarks in education delivery-mdg goals 2 & 3 as well as the EfA goals and the Ghana ESP objectives of access, equity and welfare. 9

8 The motivation for implementing the wing school concept at an unprecedented scale, albeit as a pilot model in the Gushegu and Karaga districts, was that most deprived communities of the two districts are so dispersed, remote and hard-to-reach that they do not meet GES threshold and criteria to justify the opening up of full-fledged primary schools - a major reason among others, for which schools did not exist in such communities. However, after collaborating with GES, District Assemblies and communities to set up and manage 56 wing schools on pilot basis, the education stakeholders associated with the project, including GES have become convinced that the concept has come to stay as an innovative approach and strategy to providing education to children in hard-to-reach communities of Ghana but which hitherto appeared to be beyond the reach of GES. A significant learning that emerged from ACE delivery of the wing school model has been the unintended benefits within the pilot. Beyond providing educational opportunities for children in deprived and hard-to-reach communities, the intervention has offered development opportunities to target communities beyond the wing school model. For instance, but for ACE intervention the District Assemblies might not have included the development priorities of these target communities in the delivery of other services such as water and sanitation, health, agriculture, road network etc in addition to education. Besides, more than half of the designated wing schools have become full-fledged primary schools (KG to P6), hence further broadening the frontiers of education for deprived rural people. Some of the 39 full-fledged schools are attracting the opening up of Junior High Schools to be attached to them by GES. 10

9 Attributes of ACE Wing Schools Community teachers are offered pre- service training and in-service training to teach in a participatory manner and in the mother tongue of the community in question. s a strategy for reaching out-ofschool children in hard-to-reach Arural areas with basic education, the wing school concept is known by some significant attributes. Hard-to-Reach Communities: in order that Mother Tongue: it has been proven by the children located in hard-to-reach practices of School for Life and in other communities are not discriminated jurisdictions that learning in the first against in education delivery, the wing l a n g u a g e fa c i l i tates k n o w l e d g e school concept has been introduced as a acquisition and hence the use of Dagbanli strategy for targeting and enrolling all out- and Likpakpaaln in the wing schools as of-school children in hard-to-reach medium of instruction in response to the communities at the right age of between contexts of target communities. The 4-6 years. Ghanaian school curriculum has been translated into the two languages and Community Ownership: wing school used to teach pupils from Kindergarten to communities are excited about owning a primary 3. school and getting their children enrolled in school, and as such have vibrant School Learner-Centred, Gender-Sensitive and Management Committees (SMCs) with Participatory Teaching Methodology: active female participation and wing school classes are arranged with leadership. The SMCs have led the process children seated in groups. Children are of supporting the schools and mobilizing active participants in the teaching and the rest of the community to support the learning process and so are confident teaching and learning processes. about what they learn. Every child has a chance to realise their full potential as Community teachers: a school is a they are allowed to express themselves. function of teachers and in the wing The teachers are conscious of the schools teachers live and teach in the environment of the child and as such community. In this regard, community engage children to explore their members play a key role in the environment in the teaching and learning recruitment process and indeed are process. responsible for the upkeep of teachers in terms of accommodation, feeding and teacher motivation at the school level. 11

10 Methodology and Pedagogical Approaches of the ACE Wing School Model Community initiative and ownership The underlying approach of the wing school concept is collaboration with hardto-reach community people. Wing school communities are the key drivers of the schools. The communities largely own the schools because they start-up the schools with physical structures after buying into the idea and actively participate in the teacher recruitment process. The community in question is given the first option of recruiting their own son or daughter who has completed Senior High School with minimum passes to teach in the school. The communities are then responsible for accommodating, feeding and supporting the teachers to live and teach in their communities. They accept the school as theirs and do everything to s u p p o r t i t! S c h o o l M a n a gement Committees are formed around opinion leaders in the community with strong female participation. Teachers' Professional Development Pre-service and in-service training are a hallmark of the wing school model. Recognising that Senior High School leavers with minimum passes are not qualified to teach, an initial 21-day intensive preservice training is a package is offered t h e m, c o m p r i s i n g l e s s o n n o t e s preparation, subject content, mother tongue instruction, school-community 12 relations and school management to startup. Subsequently an average of 3 and 5-day refresher courses are organized each school term for wing school teachers to further develop their skills and knowledge in teaching. Wing school teachers are motivated through the professional monthly meetings that are organized for learning and sharing of experiences among them and to listen to their challenges and find solutions to them. Development and use of curriculum All textbooks of the GES at the lower primary school level - Creative Arts, Natural Science, Literacy and Numeracy are translated into the mother tongue of the learners. Teachers are trained to teach in the mother tongue with the help of teachers' guides in the respective subjects. Supervision in wing schools S e t i n d e p r i v e d h a r d - t o - r e a c h communities, key to the success of the model is a multi-level supervision by GES circuit supervisors and supervisors of the project. The ACE approach to supervision seeks to deepen the GES concept of clinical supervision which is seldom practised. Supervision in wing schools entails collegial support to teachers through lesson observation and feedback, demonstration lessons to strengthen both content and

11 approaches to lesson delivery and overall motivation to the teacher by seeking their welfare in the context of schoolcommunity relationship. GES circuit supervisors provide oversight supervision to wing schools and provide logistics such as textbooks, furniture, teachers' note books, chalk, capitation grant, school uniform and exercise books for the upkeep of the schools. The project supervisors work closely with GES circuit supervisors for experience sharing and knowledge transfer that ultimately benefits the wider public school system of GES. Formalisation of wing schoolsstarting up as community initiated schools in hard-toreach communities, wing schools are complementary to existing public schools. At this stage wing schools make use of Senior High School leavers as teachers with pre-service training; school uniforms are not required and community members are encouraged to freely enrol their children into school and support them daily with food and water. However in order for wing schools to develop into formal schools, they make use of the curriculum and textbooks of public schools; they use the regular school time schedule of public schools; they adopt a pupil-teacher ratio of 35:1 of public schools and target children for enrolment into school at the right ages of between 4-6 for lower primary education of KG to P3. In addition to equipping wing school teachers with skills and knowledge of learner-centred and participatory teaching approaches, including in-service training in each school term, they are enrolled into colleges of education to u p g r a d e t h e m s e l v e s to b e come certificated upon successful completion and absorbed onto government payroll to continue teaching in their respective communities and districts. The ACE approach adopts the mother tongue of pupils of target communities as medium of instruction at the lower primary level of schooling, in line with the public school system. The GES school curriculum and textbooks have been translated into Dabganli and Likpakpaaln with some minor modifications in picture illustrations to depict the context of the learners. Community teachers in wing schools have been trained to use the textbooks and to adopt learner-centred, gender-sensitive and participatory teaching methods thereby making the teaching and learning process democratic, relevant and interesting, with each learner possessing an equal opportunity of participating actively in the learning process. Classrooms in wing schools are characterized with talking walls and other teaching and learning materials produced locally by the teachers and learners. Quality assurance is pursued and g u a r a nteed t h r o u g h continuous assessment of teachers' performance and of the proficiency levels of learners in accordance with GES standards. 13

12 ACE Gender Strategy The ACE gender strategy is underpinned by It was also meant to give equal opportunity the overall nationwide gender disparities for expression of opinion about the needs of and unequal power-relations between men communities. and women in Ghana. It recognizes that within the education context, removing Formation of SMC/PTAs: in addition to the social, cultural and economic barriers to natural role of women as prime educators of education for girls is the starting point to their children in homes, women play crucial bringing up females to match the numbers roles of feeding children, keeping the of males in educational achievements and environment clean and ensuring that there ultimately access to employment is safe and adequate shelter for the family. opportunities, political representation and Recognizing this role, women are largely decision making. The root of the disparities represented on the leadership of SMCs and and unequal power-relations have been PTAs in ACE target communities. For identified as gender stereotypes at home, instance, in wing schools women, on community, school level and the wider average are 3 out of 5 SMC members in society. small wing school communities and 4 out of 7 SMC members in larger school Community mobilization and sensitization: communities. traditionally, women are either not part of decision-making processes or do not sit Enrolment into School: in spite of the among men to take decisions in the project's initial desire to achieve equal communities in which the ACE project has enrolment (50%) for boys and girls, this has been piloted. Even where women sat not been possible due, in part, to among men they took a back stage. The demographic limitations of the two target project approach was to demystify this districts, where men were naturally more practice by ensuring that men and women than women. Nevertheless, there was a sat together to deliberate on the social conscious effort at embarking on enrolment (educational) needs/issues of their drives using existing structures of Girls' community. Education officers at the GES district directorates and Gender Desk officers at the Efforts were made through interactions District Assembly. This ensured the with community members (men and achievement of 42% girl child enrolment in women) where decisions about locating a school, albeit short of the revised target of school and the support needed for the 45%. school to function were taken by both men and women with the latter playing a more Teacher Recruitment and Training: the use central role. The idea was to remove of female teachers as role models in target inferiority complex among women in the communities is one way of motivating girl community when it came to decision children in deprived communities to enrol making and implementing those decisions. and remain in school. For instance there 14

13 were 54 (36.9%) female teachers out of the Again, in the professional development of 200 ACE community teachers. This number teachers, Gender-Sensitive Pedagogy has appears to be inadequate but in the context been integrated into the training. This of deep-seated socio-cultural barriers to approach has helped to address gender girls' education in target communities, it stereotypes which are formed at home and significantly contributed to achieving the brought to the school level by pupils, objective of using female teachers as role teachers and community members. The models to boost school enrolment of girls in result of this approach has been the deprived communities. assertiveness and active participation of both boys and girls in wing schools. ACE Governance Strategy Education GovernanceAt the district level, GES, the District Education Oversight Committee (DEOC) and District Assemblies are key duty-bearers responsible for the accountable delivery of education services. By engaging with state structures including building their technical capacity, the project sought to empower them to deliver on their mandate. At the same time, the project identified and empowered civil society organisations in the districts to serve as intermediaries in building the capacities of SMCs/PTAs and also directly advocate on various development issues in their engagement with district level governance structures. Local level civil society: Songsim Integrated Development Association (SONIDA) and Tisongmitaba Development Association (TIDA) are two community based organizations or local level civil society organizations identified in Gushegu and Karaga districts respectively, and have served as intermediaries of the ACE project. They have directly facilitated the functionality of SMC/PTAs and networked these school level governance structures to be more effective in demanding educational services from GES and the DA. SONIDA and TIDA have acquired skills on the operations of Area and Town/Councils and are utilizing their knowledge by building the capacities of Assembly members, Area/Town council members and unit committees on their roles and responsibilities. SONIDA and TIDA have collaborated with the DAs to develop Community Action Plans as the starting point for District Medium Term Development Plans. The two CBOs have linked up with like-minded civil society groups including members of District Education for All Teams (DEFATs) and the CBO-network of Ghanaian Danish Communities Association (GDCA) to jointly conduct monitoring and district plan reviews on education and general development. The ACE project has pursued governance within the context of sustaining the 56 piloted wing schools and ensure that the attributes and practices of the project are internalized within GES practices to affect the wider public school system in Ghana. The process involved building the internal capacities of GES and District Assemblies as well as empowering community people to appreciate their own reality and to demand that their development priorities are addressed by the state agencies. District level oversight monitoring and supervision: routine school monitoring and supervision by the district education directorate is the mandate of GES but is often the biggest challenge of the service. Lessons from regular monitoring, including multilevel monitoring and supervision of wing schools have given impetus to school monitoring by GES directors and circuit supervisors in the target district. 15

14 Steps to implementing the wing school model a) District entry and community profiling training for wing school in relation to education access with teachers on language of e m p h a s i s o n h a r d - t o - r e a c h instruction, subject content, communities (DA/GES takeover from learner-centred, genderstart-to-finish) sensitive & participatory A n a l y s i s o f s c h o o l - a g e teaching approaches. population with a focus on out- Conduct refresher training in of-school children e a c h s c h o o l term fo r Analysis of key local government teachers structures and build capacity in Identify opportunities for relation to education delivery- long-term professional GES (DTSTs, DEOC); DA sub- development of teachers, e.g structures (Area/Town Councils) UTDBE programme. Identify and analyze potentials of d) Translation of GES curriculum and and build capacity of CBOs within textbooks into the local language of district in relation to education learners delivery. Contextualize textbooks in b) Identification of communities and the environment of the community entry learner, e.g ACE/NALAP Identify language of instruction materials. Community mobilisation and Ensure that texts are sensitization gender-sensitive, e.g girls Elicit community acceptance to also killing snakes; girls initiate and own a school being Senior Prefects, and c) Analyze teacher supply to wing boys doing house chores. schools in relation to language of e) Quality Assurance instruction Develop the professional Joint identification of competence of District p o tential teachers b y Teacher Support Teams communities, GES /DA and (DTSTs) CSOs. Institutionalize refresher Analyze and engage GES/DA training for wing school support for wing school teachers using the learner- teachers. centred approach as a Identification of trainers of strategy. teachers by language groups- C o n d u c t c o n t i n u o u s draw from professional quality assessment of institutions and CSOs teachers and pupils using Provide initial 21-day GES approved standards. 16

15 ACE Stakeholders The stakeholders of the ACE project As lead agency for the Complementary serve both as the managers of the Education (CBE) Alliance, SfL has been project under the Project Steering instrumental in pushing for inclusion of Committee and also as implementers the ACE wing school model in the CBE o f t h e p ro j e c t. T h ey o f fe re d policy of government which is yet to be complementary services which implemented. combined to evolve the wing school model as a product of the wing school IBIS in Ghana: IBIS has experiences concept as conceived and pursued by working in partnership with both state them. and non-state actors to achieve synergy of interventions and accountable School for Life (SfL): brought to the delivery of education. In this regard, IBIS project its experience of mother tongue has worked on both short term and long instruction and approaches to term professional development of delivering functional literacy using teachers and approaches for effective context relevant curriculum. It has teaching and learning within GES and therefore been responsible for with some colleges of education. These curriculum development-translating experiences have amounted to the the GES curriculum and textbooks into uniqueness of the wing school package. Dagbanli and Likpakpaaln languages- in wing schools and initial training of Ghana National Association of community teachers to teach in the Teachers (GNAT): GNAT has over mother tongue in a context-adaptive 150,000 members drawn from preway. tertiary educational institutions and offices in Ghana. With a mission to unify SfL has been responsible for assessing all teachers and strive for better teaching and learning outcomes to conditions of service and job security as reflect the relevance of training and well as enhance the professional status learning materials in wing schools. SfL of all teachers, GNAT's role in the project has long championed the cause of is to advocate and arrange professional complementary education that takes development opportunities for wing into account all workable models for school teachers, provide orientation to consideration by government to ensure teachers on their professional code of that all school-age children are in c o n d u c t a n d a d v o c a t e t h e school. mainstreaming of both wing schools and community teachers onto 17

16 government pay roll. Northern Network for Education Development (NNED): NNED is the sole civil society network on education in Northern Ghana advocating for equity in education delivery for the Northern part of Ghana. It, in delivering on its mandate, set up local level structures called District Education for All Teams (DEFATs), who were responsible for gathering evidence from the grassroots for NNED's advocacy activities at local, regional and national levels. NNED worked on various aspects affecting the smooth implementation of the wing schools, ranging from issues of teacher supply to GES enhanced support for education delivery in the Gushegu and Karaga districts. Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC): ISODEC is a recognized national level advocacy organization on various issues around equity, transparency and accountable governance. Its clout has been relevant, at the Steering Committee level for the implementation of wing schools, in addition to its experience of working specifically on girls' education. Bagabaga College of Education (BATCO): as a teacher training institution with the mandate of training teachers for the GES. It has therefore served as the laboratory for testing the training of untrained school leavers as teachers in ACE's package of participatory teaching approaches. It has also played a key role in determining quality assurance in the implementation of the wing school concept. Ghana Education Service (GES): GES is the government mandated institution for implementing education policy in Ghana and responsible for the achievement of MDG goals 2 & 3 as well as the EfA goals. The GES regional office in Tamale has offered guidance and support to the implementation of wing schools and ensured legitimacy to the entire concept and its relevance up to the national level. The District directorates of GES are the direct owners of the 56 wing schools and as such, directly responsible for resource allocation, monitoring and eventual takeover of the wing schools. District Assembly (DA): the DAs of G u s h e g u a n d Ka ra ga a re t h e d e v e l o p m e n t p l a n n i n g a n d implementation authorities at the local level and are responsible for providing education to all of their people. Their membership of the ACE Steering Committee is to legitimize the wing school initiative in their jurisdictions for the benefit of all school-age children and to provide the needed resources and eventually takeover of the full responsibility of seeing to the upkeep of the schools and teachers to ensure sustainability of ACE initiatives. 18

17 Wing Schools Increase Quality and Access to Education Today, the wing schools in the reach communities and provided Karaga and Gushegu Districts have them with contextually relevant not only increased the access of quality education using the national many out of school children to curriculum. education, but also improved the quality and governance of The wing school model has education in the two districts. successfully provided equitable educational opportunities for girls. In 2006/2007 Gushegu (9,163) and Out of a total of over 8,000 children Karaga (7,918) together had a basic enrolled into school, 42% are girls. school enrolment of 17,081. This Educational opportunities have enrolment increased to 52,859 been increased for many more (male 26,733 and female 26,126), communities which were otherwise Karaga (20,844) and Gushegu unknown before the project (32,015), representing a 209.4% intervened. Children are now being increase in enrolment within 5 enrolled from KG to primary 6 in the years. It has been admitted by the 39 full-fledged schools whilst the education directorates of the two remaining 17 continue to function districts that the near Gender as wing schools. Parity across the two districts was largely attributable to the intense Quality Assurance ACE wider interventions to The quality of teaching and learning improve upon access to school outcomes are continuously especially for girl children. assessed in wing schools. These assessments have helped to Access establish that every average pupil The model increased access to basic who has completed a wing school at education in the two districts by primary 3 is proficient in both building 56 wing schools with over literacy and numeracy in their 8,000 pupils. Thirty- nine (39) of the mother tongue at GES desirable 56 wing-schools have transformed levels compared with the national into fully-fledged primary schools. average of about 30% pupils The ACE project has successfully attaining proficiency at the same modelled an approach to targeting level. The ability of over 75% of out-of-school children in hard-to- wing school pupils to read and write 19

18 at primary 3 is a motivation for many parents to enrol many more children in school, particularly girl children. Some parents are beginning to rely on their children to read simple texts including sorting out identification cards for family members, which was hitherto not possible at home unless they got to the service point where the card was required. Governance The governance of education in the two target districts has improved through the project's comprehensive approach to development. The project has empowered communities to initiate and own schools. It has strengthened civil society's capacity to mobilise and sensitize communities and built the capacity of the two District Assemblies and GES to plan and implement plans in consonance with community development priorities. Vibrant SMCs and PTAs, with active female participation and leadership now exist in both wing schools and at least 44 public schools across the two districts. The best practices are being adopted within the wider public school system starting from Gushegu and Karaga districts. School Management Committees (SMCs) and Parent Teacher A s s o c i a t i o n s ( P TA s ) a r e responsible for providing start-up infrastructure for wing schools through communal labour. They mobilise and enrol children into schools; they ensure that children are supported and provided for to remain in school, and lobby GES and DAs for infrastructure, teachers etc. The ACE project has worked at extending some of its good practices to other districts. Three modules of Training of Trainers on Learner-Centred and Participatory Teaching Approaches have been delivered to District Training Support Teams (DTST) of eight districts and tutors of four colleges of education. The districts and colleges which benefited from the training are Gushegu and Karaga districts, Bole, Sawla-Tuna-Kalba, East Gonja, Kpandai districts of the Northern region and Asunafo South and Tano South districts of the Brong Ahafo region. The training colleges are St Joseph's College-Bechem, Bimbila College of Education, Tamale College of Education and Bagabaga College of Education. 20

19 Replicate the Wing School Model Given this overwhelming evidence the ACE position is that the Ministry of E d u c a t i o n s h o u l d f u l f i l t h e Complementary Basic Education (CBE) Policy by adopting and establishing more wing schools in hardto-reach communities. The wing school is a workable model for targeting out-of-school children in dispersed hard-to-reach settlements; the project has built 56 wing schools and enrolled over 8,000 children within six years. Thirty-nine of the wing schools have become full schools. Vibrant SMCs and PTAs, are working progressively. Two hundred school leavers who are training to graduate as professional teachers will double the number of qualified teachers in the Gushegu and Karaga districts. These have further expanded the frontiers of access to education for many more children and improved quality and governance. The project has also improved the accountability and management skills of over 500 head teachers, teachers and circuit supervisors. These successes are indications for the Ministry of Education to establish more wing schools to fulfil its Complementary Basic Education Policy, MDGs 2&3, the Education for All goals and its own Education Strategic Plan. 21

20 Annex: COSTED WING SCHOOL MODEL: COST PER WING SCHOOL (KG inclusive + 3 Years Lower primary school) Notes: The estimated Pupil-Teacher Ratio (PTR) in a wing school is 35:1; it is also estimated that KG is one class in addition to P1-P3 in a wing school; there are 3 teachers teaching 4 classes and will manage using multi-grade teaching skills; Every wing school is formalized over time and integrated into the public school system within 3 years; the cost items are therefore associated with direct cost incurred on a child in wing school 1 Wing School Start-up Cost Community Mobilsation & Capacity Building: sensitization, setting up and training SMC/PTA-initial training & annual refresher GHc500 per community meeting X 4 formal meetings 2,000 Sub total 2,000 2 Community Teacher Recruitment & Training 21-day pre-service training (mother tongue instruction and general GHc90 X 21 days X 3 teachers 5,670 Training in learner-centred, gender-sensitive & participatory teaching approaches in all lower primary subjects@ GHc90 X 3 days X 3 teachers X 3 terms 4,050 Training in Multi-grade 90 X 5-days X 3 teachers 1,350 Sub total 11,070 3 Allowances & Incentives for Teachers Monthly Allowances@GHc100 per teacher per month X 12 months 3 teachers X 3 years 1,200 Incentives: provision of bicycles, radio sets and GHc200 per teacher X 3 teachers 600 Sub total 1,800 4 Teaching & Learning Materials Translation of GES curriculum into local language and printing of per textbook X 140 pupils 2,800 Production of Supplementary 5 per book X 140 pupils 700 Supply of Teaching aids and other TLMs@GHc 5 X 140 pupils 700 Classroom equipment-dual desk & teachers' X 140 pupils 11,200 Quality Assessment of Teaching & Learning outcomes@ghc350 per class X 3 years 1,050 Sub total 16,450 5 Project Support and Supervision Monitoring and X 3 terms X 3 years 4,500 Sub total 4,500 Grand total 35,820 Cost per child in a wing school within 3 years

21 A E ALLIANCE FOR CHANGE IN EDUCATION Ibis Education for development