USAID and Partners Awards Innovation in Early Grade Reading in Ghana

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), World Vision USA, and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) have jointly launched a multi-year initiative to help improve early grade reading outcomes in low-resource settings in Ghana. The U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission in Ghana, C. Pat Alsup, launched the initiative with a forum where the All Children Reading Grand Challenge awardees for Ghana presented their winning concepts and proposed implementation plans to USAID and key Ghana education sector stakeholders, including members of the Ghana Education Service and Development Partners.

The All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development program focuses attention on specific and narrowly defined development challenges that facilitate innovative approaches to solving those challenges. The initiative emphasizes solutions that are grounded in science and technology, and are robust, cost effective, and expandable to other areas. The focus on reading is anticipated to contribute to Ghana's Education Strategic Plan 2010-2020 policy objectives of providing quality education at the basic education level. For Ghana to advance human capacity, a key driver to economic growth, successful completion of basic schooling and a minimum of foundational skills, such as the ability to read and calculate, are required. Ghana is one of 20 countries that have developed draft Reading Action Plans that will contribute to halving the number of non-readers across these countries.

Four organizations have been selected for the All Children Reading Grand Challenge Round One Ghana 2012: Perkins School for the Blind; Olinga Foundation for Human Development Ghana; Open Learning Exchange Ghana; and Worldreader. These organizations were selected to receive grants after a rigorous assessment of proposals, from approximately 400 organizations across the globe, to provide innovative ideas to identify and expand groundbreaking approaches for promoting early grade reading, particularly in low resource settings.