Ghana on track to achieve 80 per cent primary school completion rate

Accra, May 9, GNA – Ghana with the assistance of Education for All Fast Track Initiative (EFA FTI), an international partnership connecting donors with low-income countries, is on track to achieve primary school completion rate of 80 per cent by 2015.

This was contained in “Sounds from the Classroom”, a publication of EFA FTI that was launched in Copenhagen, Denmark recently; a release from the World Bank Office in Accra said on Saturday.

Other countries that are also on track to achieving the target include Guyana; Madagascar; Mongolia and Yemen.

The publication features the five countries - focusing on how their basic education programmes, supported by the EFA FTI partnership, have impacted the lives of children, parents and communities positively.

It tells the story of a grade two pupil of an elementary school in Accra, Ghana, who just loves to go to school everyday to learn and eat her bowl of boiled 'yam and kontomire' that keeps her going for the whole day.

There is also the story about a nine-year old girl from Madagascar, who would be the first of her family's eight children going beyond fifth grade and hopes to continue to high school; and about a herder in Mongolia's remote steppe, who takes his young son to a mobile pre-school by horseback – something that was unimaginable when he was a child.

According to the release the past decade has seen unprecedented gains in access to education in developing countries and that in Sub-Saharan Africa alone, the countries supported by the EFA FTI, an international partnership established in 2002 to help to achieve universal primary education, saw a net gain of 15 million primary school pupils over a six-year period.

It said even though much more remained to be done despite the high enrolment rates, it represented real progress, catalyzed in part by EFA FTI, which has seen the allocation of over US$ 1.4 billion through its main Catalytic Trust Fund.

The EFA FTI connects donors with low-income countries on the basis of their national education plans. These plans are ambitious and would send many more children around the world to school and give them a chance for proper education.

The EFA FTI manages, among other funds, a USD 1.5 billion trust fund to support countries in achieving their education goals. It currently endorses the education programmes of 37 developing countries, and hopes to help around 18 million more children, who are still out of school by 2010, the release said.

GNA