Tamale, May 20, GNA - Ibis (Ghana), a Danish NGO, has initiated a program in the Northern Region aimed at sensitising rural communities on "Out of School" so that parents would appreciate the importance of sending their wards to school.

The selected districts are Sawla/Kalba Tuna, East Gonja and Bole districts in the Northern Region and Budumburum in the Central Region. The programme is part of the processes for a five-year comprehensive education program (Education for Empowerment) carried out by Ibis last year as a means of improving education in the rural areas of the three northern regions and parts of the Central Region.

Mr Tijani Ahmed Hamza, Program Director at the Northern Ghana office, told the Ghana News Agency in Tamale in an interview on Friday that Ibis was spending about 2.7 million dollars for the five-year period in supporting education issues in the northern sector of Ghana. He said community sensitisation and identification of rural education volunteers will be initiated this year.

Mr Tijani said the NGO was committed to the Millennium Development Goals.

He said Ibis would continue to provide education opportunities to all Ghanaians as enshrined in the government's Poverty Reduction Strategy. Mr Tijani described the government's programme to train the untrained teachers as laudable and that Ibis and other NGOs would support the programme.

Other areas that Ibis would be working on included attempts to increase numbers and capacity of local NGOs to implement complementary education systems for out of school children, Children's achievement and performance rates in the districts and to empower teachers to be committed to teach in rural communities.