According to the Northern Regional Coordinator of Plan International, Mr Stephen Konde, with funding support from Educate A Child (EAC), the project, dubbed: “Reaching and Teaching Out-of-School Children (REACH),” was a five-year programme aimed at addressing the challenges of out-of-school children in the country.

Mr Konde explained that the REACH project “provides Complementary Basic Education (CBE)” tuition for out-of-school children, in order to prepare them to be absorbed in the formal education system.

Mr Konde stated this in an interview with the Daily Graphic in reaction to the high number of out-of-school children in the three regions of the north.

189 Communities

He explained that most of the out-of-school children enrolled on the CBE were aged between eight and 14, indicating that the children were selected from 189 communities and had been enrolled on 356 CBE programmes, with more than 44 per cent being girls.

He said since the REACH programme began in October 2015, it had enrolled more than 9,139 out-of-school children in some selected districts and municipalities in Upper East, Upper West and the Northern regions.

He said some of the beneficiary districts and municipalities are Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo, Chereponi, Tatale, Wa and Tamale.

Mr Konde advised parents to maintain a small family size to enable them to cater for the needs of their children, and expressed concern that due to large family sizes, some parents, particularly in the Northern Region, were unable to provide for the educational needs of their school-age children and were also unable to send their children to school.