In its quest to advance literacy in Ghana’s rural dwellings, Connecting Kids Education Foundation (CKEF), a non-governmental organization (NGO), has held a workshop for parents at Anweem-Kumasi in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem (KEEA) municipality in the Central region, aimed at imbibing the need to educate their wards.
Wednesday’s workshop was the second of such to be organized by the foundation. The first was held for teachers of Anweem-Kumasi M/A Basic School focused on nurturing the skills of the teachers for effective instruction.
CKEF’s working relationship with the Anweem-Kumasi community started in Feb. 2017, in collaboration with the KEEA Municipal Education Directorate, when it launched a systematic sustainable developmental initiative dubbed the “Fast Track Whole School Development Programme.”
The partnership, the founder and president of CKEF Ellen Blamires tells me, apart from aiming to improve teacher competency during instruction, also aims at imbibing in parents the desire to get their children educated.
“Today’s program aimed at bridging the relationship with parents as we seek ways of improving education in Anween-Kumasi where standards have been falling in recent times with only 6 out of 26 students passing the recent BECE with reading levels as low as 20%,” she stated.
She said CKEF’s goal is to construct a well-stocked library/ICT center by September for the school “with the support of our key partners PW Ghana and Kings School, UK” because “CKEF has a track record of promoting systematic educational improvements.”
Addressing the parents during the workshop, Wilfred Katey Adodoadji, the KEEA’s Assistant Director of Education in charge of Supervision and Monitoring stated that per government’s policy, all children at age four must be in school.
Therefore, he said, it is incumbent on parents to be active participants in the education of their wards.
He also admonished the over 150 parents at the workshop to occasionally visit the school to ascertain the progress of their wards.
Also, he tasked them to show keen interest in the types of programmes the children watch on television.
The Circuit Supervisor for Dominase Circuit, Wilfred Boateng, in whose jurisdiction the Anweem-KumasiM/A Basic School is, on his part told the parents who are mostly farmers that educating their wards is the key to absolving the community of abject poverty.
He also took the parents through various strategies on how to encourage their wards to speak English.
According to him, even though it is the responsibility of the teachers to imbibe English speaking habit in the pupils, parents must also show interest.
The chief organizing officer of CKEF Gibson Oforo-Owusu, thanked the parents for their active participation in the workshop assuring them that September this year, CKEF will commence the construction library block for the school and the community at large.
Speaking on behalf of the parents, the school’s Parents Teacher Association (PTA) chairman thanked CKEF for expressing interest in the development of the community.
On his part, the Headmaster of the school Isaac Kojo Nuamah said performance in the school which had been in existence for the last four decades was nothing to write home about hitherto the intervention of CKEF.
“Things have started since the Connecting Kids Education Foundation decided to extend its benevolence here,” he said.
Some of the teachers who spoke with me concurred with the headmaster noting that the training they had, positively impacted on them.
