School for Life (SfL), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) has began training 106 community volunteers as facilitators under its Complementary Basic Education (CBE) programme to teach out-of-school children in the Northern Region.

Topics being treated at the three-week training programme, which opened at Dalun in the Kumbungu District, include participatory learning approach, word formation, the use of classroom register, the importance of mother tongue and CBE methodology in facilitation.

The facilitators were drawn from seven out of the nine districts, where SfL implements the CBE programme, which includes Kumbungu, Saboba, Mion, Zabzugu, Sagnarigu, Nanumba South and Yendi Municipality.

CBE aims at giving out-of-school children, between eight to 14 years, an opportunity to acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills in their mother-tongues to enable them to enroll in the formal school system.

Madam Grace Abu, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer in-charge of Literacy Classes at SfL, said after training the volunteer facilitators would be deployed to communities within the seven districts to teach pupils for nine months, using their mother-tongues such as Dagbani and Kikpakpang.

Madam Abu said after the nine-month period, the pupils would be in a position to enroll in the formal school system, entering between primary three to six, depending on their abilities.

She urged the volunteers to take the training serious to ensure success of the programme.

Mr Mohammed Sheriff, a volunteer facilitator from Paating, a community in the Mion District, assured that they would applied the knowledge gained in their teaching methods.