Dalun (N/R), May 16, GNA - The School for Life, a Danish NGO, has enrolled 8,933 children in rural communities in its 360 literacy classes last year using Ghanaian languages to teach them.

About 40 per cent of the children were girls, the drop out rate was 3.4 per cent and 73 per cent continued to formal school. Dr Abubakr Al-Hassan, Chairman of the Ghanaian Danish Communities Association (GDCA), said this when he read the annual report at the 21st general meeting of the association at Dalun on Sunday.

He said 10,947 children had been enrolled in 440 classes and it has targeted 19,880 children to be enrolled by the end of the year. He said 60 circuit supervisors from the Ghana Education Service and 195 primary one and three formal schoolteachers in four districts had been trained in ''SfL pedagogical approach.''

Dr Al-Hassan said SfL has made a partnership with Education Development Centre (EDC), an American NGO, to implement a Complementary Education and Community Support Teacher (CEP/CST) component of an Education Quality for All (EQUALL) project.

He said the USAID is supporting the project with 3.6 million dollars for the replication of the SfL in nine districts in the Northern and Upper regions.

About 40,000 children are targeted under the five-year project and would be implemented on pilot basis in Bole and West Gonja districts. Dr Al-Hassan said SfL, in collaboration with Ibis, had launched Ibis new Education for Empowerment Programme and the Alliance for Change in Education project.

The project aims to provide children of school going age with quality basic education using well trained and committed teachers in a well functioning and community supported school system. 16 May 05