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In line with Confucius’ wisdom, “if your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for 10 years, plant trees. If your plan is for 100 years, educate children”, Ghana’s commitment to education since independence has been remarkable. However, there are children between the ages of 8 to 14 years, who remain out of school. Since 1995, the Complementary Basic Education, CBE, programme has provided a second chance for out-of-school children to access education. In the following report, GBCNews takes a look at how non-state actors through the CBE are living up to the promise of leaving no child behind in accessing the basic right to education in order to provide opportunities for those children, especially girls, to thrive.
The CBE Journey with Alumni: Catching Them Young
It was joy on the faces of Complementary Basic Education learners when in May this year (2025), Alumni Association of School for Life, an NGO spearheading the Complementary Basic Education, CBE programme, visited some learning centers in the Northern Region. They visited 15 communities across the Savulugu, Nanton, Kumbungu, and Tolon districts where the project is being implemented. The visit was to encourage the learners to take their lessons seriously in order to succeed in pursuing higher education. This was a moment of reflection for the members of the association, reminiscing how they equally passed through the CBE programme some decades ago.
“My main aim of staying with my aunty in the village was to take care of her children and when I spoke about the idea of enrolling in the CBE programme, it was very challenging because the question was, who would take care of the children when my aunty was in the farm?. What saved me was the time of the CBE classes, it was an evening class. And at that time what most of us were looking up to in the village were the head potters (kayaye) who returned to the village flaunting their wealth and possession which ignited some of us. In fact if it was not the CBE, I would have ended up in Accra as a head potter”.
These were the words of Mohammed Rashida Maltiti, a CBE Alumni. Rashida was almost 12 years when she defied her guardian’s warning and joined CBE in the Karaga district and transitioned to formal education in Grade 3 in Tamale. Rashida will be graduating next year from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, in Kumasi, where she is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work. She is currently the Vice President of the CBE Alumni Association in the Northern region which has a membership of about 300.
”I am very happy because CBE was something that paved the way for me. I have the education and the exposure. I am very happy when I look back and see my achievement. I am glad that I took that step because I am gradually becoming somebody in future”.
For a 33-year-old Rahama Mohamud , her CBE journey was smooth due to a push from her parents.
”I started the CBE by joining the adult education classes at night. I was staying with my aunty at Gushegu and I was not in formal school then. In the night while my colleagues were outside playing, I would sneak and join the adult classes and in no time the facilitator realized I picked the lessons faster because whenever he taught the class, I would be the first one to understand and I was even teaching the others, So he made me join the CBE classes with my colleagues”
And that was how Rahama began her educational journey at the age of 12. She transitioned to basic three in 2000 with educational and personal support from School for Life, SFL, untill she completed junior high school and later attended Northern School of Business, NOBISCO in Tamale. She is currently teaching at a primary school in Tamale after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Care and Education from the University of Development Studies, UDS, in Tamale. Rahama is currently pursuing M.Phil in Early Childhood Care and Education from the same university. She is also the treasurer for the CBE Alumni Association.
In everything, foundation is very important and my biggest foundation comes from School for Life because if I did not join the adult education classes to learn how to read and write, I would not have been where I am today. I cannot fully say I am financially independent but thank God I am independent because I can do certain things on my own without depending on anyone”.
School for Life; The CBE story
To date, the School for Life CBE programme continues to be the bridge through which thousands of children, especially girls, are enrolled into formal school, marking the beginning of their educational journey. The good news is that the programme ensures 50 percent of the learners are girls, and hence, it has seen steady progress in girls’ enrollments and attendance. In the last three to four years, School for Life has churned out thousands of children in the four participating districts in the region under the Ghana Education Outcome Project. Between 2022 and 2023, 6,220 children participated in the first cohort of the School for Life programme, of which 5,281 made up of 2,529 females and 2,752 males transitioned into formal school at the end of the cycle in the 2023-2024 academic year. For Cohort two, 6,150 children were enrolled in the 2023-2024 season, where 5,205 children made up of 2,186 females and 3,019 males transitioned to formal school for the 2024-2024 academic year. Enrollments for the 2024-2025 CBE year for Cohort three saw 2,683 females and 3,572 males participating. They were transitioned in September 2025 for the academic year.
The Achievement
The Director of School for Life, Hajia Wedad Sayibu, in an interview with GBC News in Tamale, said girls have benefited from the programme and School for Life was happy to be associated with giving them a second chance in education since its inception in 1995.
”Approximately between an average of 45 and 48 percent of them are girls and for us it is refreshing. Girls most especially, have layers of vulnerabilities that make their situations even more dire compared with boys. For our programme, we give higher percentage in terms of priority to girls. For us as an organization, the CBE programme and the impact it has made over the years excites us”.
Fortunate enough, apart from School for Life ensuring that children, especially girls, are given second chances at education, Plan International Ghana, a humanitarian and development organization, is also leading the Alternative Learning Program, ALP, in the North East region. In April this year, authorities from the organization were at Mimima, one of its operational communities to check on the second cohort’s progress in the classroom. 28 learners made up of 17 females and 11 males were being taken through basic literacy and numeracy in Mampruli. In the gathering, a woman walked briskly with her 11-year-old daughter, holding hands and beaming with smiles. Curious about her happiness, the news team approached her. She shared that her daughter was a participant of the first cohort of the ALP in the village. She explained that she could not get the means to send her daughter to school, therefore, when the ALP programme was introduced, she gave her consent for her daughter to be enrolled. ”Now she can write my name and my husband’s name and those in our family, she can write their names, I am happy for my daughter”
Magdalene John, the 11-year-old girl, was part of 21 girls who participated in the first cohort of 44 learners for out-of-school children at Mimima, a village in the West Mampusi municipality of the Northeast region. She was now in class 6 at Mimima D.A. Primary School at the time of filing this report. She was expected to join her colleagues to the Junior High this September, 2025.
”I want to become someone in future, the people made me attend school and I am happy about that, I want to become a doctor in future”. Magdalene spoke in Mampruli
Government Intervention
The Government of Ghana, through the Complementary Education Agency, formerly known as the Non-Formal Education Division, began its pilot in the Savannah region in the 2022 literacy cycle. It later commenced its first cycle of learners for the 2024-2025 CBE year in Northern region, with six participating districts. A total of 3,104 children made up of 1,659 males and 1,445 females were enrolled and are due to be transitioned to the 2025-2026 academic year.
When girls are educated, societies become more equitable, healthy and prosperous with benefits like reduced child marriage, teenage pregnancy and mortality, higher earning potentials for women, and stronger economic growth and independence. Educated girls are empowered to participate in their communities, make better decisions for themselves and their families, and become leaders in addressing societal challenges such as poverty and climate change. Even though the drawback to the progress in reducing the number of out-of-school children is the availability of formal schools in hard-to-reach areas to support the integration and mainstreaming of CBE graduates into formal schools, the progress is enormous.
Bottlenecks
AFrikids, a child rights organization in the Upper East Region, estimated that about 500,000 children of school-going age in Northern Ghana are still out of school. A study carried out by Songtaba, an NGO in Tamale, revealed that about 3,765 girls dropped out of school in the Northern region due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with 1,577 cases recorded at the primary level. Zabzugu District recorded the highest numbers, followed by Saboba and Kpandai Districts.
Conclusion/Recommendation
Education Act, Act 778 requires district assemblies to provide the necessary infrastructure needs and any other facilities for the education of the population in the area of its authorities. For this provision, district assemblies can establish mobile schools that can reach remote areas, support community-based schools or initiatives that cater for hard-to-reach areas and implement distance learning programmes. The government can also motivate and deploy teachers to remote areas, and invest in infrastructure development such as roads to improve access to schools in hard-to-reach areas.
The Sustainable Development Goal 4 also calls for an inclusive, quality and accessible education and promotion of lifelong learning opportunities for all.
As a country, let us embrace the joy of early years of education and celebrate the endless possibilities that lie ahead of those who begin their educational journey. Each new day brings exciting challenges and opportunities for growth and it is incredibly rewarding to witness the progress and development of every child. By embracing and supporting early education, we pave the way for a brighter future filled with promise and potential.
