Some of the beneficiary districts include Chereponi, Tatale and Bunkpurugu in the Northern Region, Nkwanta North, Krachi East, Akatsi South and Ketu North in the Volta Region, and Kwahu East, Kwahu Afram Plains North and Kwahu South in the Eastern Region.

The REACH project is being implemented by Plan Ghana, a non-governmental organization, in partnership with the Ghana Education Service with sponsorship from Educate A Child.

The project, which is modelled on the Complementary Basic Education (CBE) programme, seeks to give out-of-school children beyond school starting age (eight to 14) an opportunity to acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills in their mother-tongues to enable them to enrol in the formal school system.

Mr Sulemana Gbana, Project Manager at the Northern Programmes Support Office of Plan Ghana, who briefed the press after touring some of the REACH class centres at the Savelugu/Nanton Municipality to witness the first day of REACH classes, said 1,280 community facilitators have been trained on the CBE methodology to facilitate the project to ensure success.

Mr Gbana said the classes would run for nine months (October to July) after which the pupils would be in a position to enrol in the formal school system entering between primary three to primary six depending on their abilities.

He said so far, 60,000 out-of-school children have benefited from the REACH project, a five-year initiative, which began in October, 2015, adding the project is on course to achieve its target of covering 90,000 out-of-school children.He said majority of the beneficiaries have progressed to the formal school system adding that Plan Ghana would continue to support efforts by government to establish schools in communities to help improve access to education for all children.

Mr Alhassan Tahiru, Statistics Officer at the Planning Unit of the Savelugu/Nanton Municipal Directorate of Education, said the Education Directorate was working to create wing schools in communities that did not have schools to enable more children to have access education.

Mr Tahiru, who is also Master Trainer on CBE, said 10 wing schools were created last year in the Municipality and this has helped to improve access of children to education. Madam Yakubu Mariama, mother of a pupil enrolled under the REACH project at Jegun-kukuo, lauded the initiators of the project for giving the opportunity to children in deprived communities to have access formal education.