GHAMAFA calls for local language use in schools

The Ghana Malaysia Friendship Association (GHAMAFA) is advocating the use of local languages as a medium of instruction in school.

According to them, children learn, communicate and understand easily when they are taught in their native language better than in a foreign language.

GHAMAFA made the call at an education seminar held in Accra.

The seminar which was on the theme: ‘Lessons to learn from the Malaysian Education System’ is to stir Ghanaian students interest in the Malaysian education system.

They said Malaysian education system modelled on the British education curriculum has made giant strides due to the use of it local dialect as a medium of instruction.

This they believe if Ghana adopts the Malaysian style, students will be able to compete effectively with their colleagues across the globe.

For his part, the Director of the Malaysian Education Promotion Council, Shushill Azam Shuib stressed the need for the Ghana Education Service to consider the local dialect use as a medium of instruction in the primary and secondary schools.

He noted that the change from English-medium into Malay-medium national schools has enable students chalk great feat.

Mr. Azam Shuib also encouraged Ghanaian students to make Malaysian their final destination when seeking tertiary education.

Article from: http://www.myjoyonline.com/news/2015/September-6th

Headmaster buys sanitary pads for school girls.

The Headmaster of Demonstration School for the Deaf, Basty Solomon Kwashie, has revealed that it is now common practice for him to supply girls in the school with sanitary pads monthly to prevent absenteeism.

Mr. Kwashie said the practice is gradually putting the school in financial difficulties because girls in the school are more than boys.

“As we speak I have one box of sanitary pads in my office which can only sustain them for this month and we have to pray that our donor partners support us, if not, I have to use my own pocket money to buy,” he said.

Speaking to the DAILY HERITAGE at Mampong Akuapem in the Eastern Region, Mr. Kwashie lauded government's initiative of providing free sanitary pads to girls in basic schools and noted that anything that will help the girl-child in school is highly acceptable.

The headmaster said, looking at the nature of the pupils and the kind of treatment their parents subject them to, the school is the only place of hope for them.

“So we also try our best to make them feel like part of society.It will be a disadvantage on the part of the girl-child to stay home because she cannot take proper care of herself at the end of the month. So what we do is go round to share pads to the most senior girls. Otherwise they will stay five to six days indoors without attending classes,” he stated.

Mr. Kwashie revealed further that since the school is a specialized one, they suffer financial challenges because it depends solely on government grants and donations from individuals and entities to survive.

“As we speak, 90% of the school grant has not been paid which makes running the school difficult, but in the face of all these difficulties we still enjoy mercies from God.”

He said the school currently has a population of 473 pupils; 212 boys and 261 girls out of whom 12 pupils are deaf-blind and two of them also physically challenged. He said the school also had 56 teaching and 57 non- teaching staff of 18 of whom are deaf-and-dumb.

Known as the first ever established deaf-blind school in West Africa in 1967, the school still faces accommodation problems for teaching staff and classroom blocks to house the pupils. Currently out of the 56 teachers in the school, only 18 of them live on campus with three teachers sharing a three-bedroom block.

He said about 50% of pupils who seek admission are turned down because there are no classrooms and dormitory facilities to accommodate them. The only vocational block to aid the training of pupils in vocational skills is still under construction many years after the inauguration of the project.

Another problem he mentioned was the lack of polytanks to store water for both teachers and pupils, though the school has a modern mechanized borehole which can supply water to the whole school. “What we need is a big reservoir to keep water for many days,” he stated.

He said that it was impossible for all the pupils to end up as graduates, so the school is trying to use vocational education to train pupils on livestock and appealed for support.

Mr. Kwashie commended the teaching staff for demonstrating commitment and selflessness all these years towards the well-being and development of the physically challenged in society.

He appealed to government and other private organizations to assist the school in order to develop the potentials of the future leaders by donating food items, materials and money to help run the school.

Source - Daily Heritage

United States and Ghana partner to improve child literacy.

The United States Government, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in collaboration with Ghana’s Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Ghana Education Service (GES) will launch the ‘Partnership for Education: Learning activity’, which will benefit over 2 million children in the country.

The programme would be implemented through a broad- based, national project that aligns with and helps to meet Ghana’s basic education priorities. It is aimed at improving early grade primary school literacy and exploring ways to improve numeracy.

“This five-year partnership with FHI360 seeks to improve, expand, and sustain reading performance for primary school learners nationwide, with a special focus on children in kindergarten 1 through grade 3 (KG1-P3)”, said a release from the Public Affairs Section of the U.S Embassy in Accra signed by Zainab Mahama, and copied to the Ghana News Agency (GNA).

It further stated that, “Learning will bolster Ghana’s education sector human and institutional capacity to improve teaching excellence in early grade reading, support education systems to sustain reading outcomes and engage communities and parents to promote reading.”

The release explained that Learning is part of USAID’s integrated Partnership for Education Project, designed to support the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) primary school child literacy improvement plans and efforts, in partnership with key agencies, including GES, Universities and other affiliated Ghanaian organizations and institutions.

“With this launch, the Partnership for Education: Learning activity joins the recently awarded Partnership for Education: Evaluating Systems activity, focused on monitoring and evaluation systems strengthening, and the Partnership for Education: Testing activity, which will assess and measure students reading and mathematics performance through the Early grade Reading Assessment, the Early Grade Mathematics Assessment, and the National Education Assessment.”

USAID is the lead U.S. Government agency that works to end extreme global poverty and enable resilient, democratic societies to realize their potential.

Source: GhanaWeb - Regional News of Thursday, 18 June 2015