The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in collaboration with the Ghana Ministry of Education, has initiated the Early Grade Reading program for Ghanaian students.
The Early Grade Reading program is aimed at delivering quality education to Ghanaian children, as a student result begins to diminish recently.
The program would witness the distribution and production of instructional materials for the Transition to English (T2E) activity, and Term One materials in the selected 230 schools in 19 districts across the country.
The Early Grade Reading Programme is attempting to increase Ghana’s position as one of the best countries among 12 others with class one pupils with excellent early reading abilities and identification of letter sounds.
The countries are Papua New Guinea, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kyrgyzstan, Tonga, Jordan and Liberia, Uganda, Mali, Kenya, Nigeria, and Egypt.
Early Grade Reading program partnerships
The partnership between USAID and the Ghana Education Service (GES) to offer the Early Grade Reading program has sent over 88,000 newly validated English and Ghanaian language materials to 230 schools in 17 districts across the country.
The materials included teacher guides, learner’s books, supplementary readers, and classroom materials, as well as alphabet charts, expected to benefit more than 18,000 Basic One and Basic Three learners.
The Early Grade Reading program has also seen the training of 73 master trainers in the use of the T2E reading materials as well as 1,300 teachers, assistant head-teachers, curriculum leads, and circuit supervisors to deliver engaging and effective reading lessons to improve children’s reading abilities.
Notably, the implementation of the T2E program started from October 2019 through to September 2020 to demonstrate proof of concept in transferring reading skills from local languages to English.
It builds on the Early Grade Reading program by utilizing a systematic phonics-based activity with strong vocabulary, language comprehension, and writing aligned with links to the newly introduced curriculum.
Landmark opportunity for Ghana students
While delivering his address, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh, the Minister of Education, expressed appreciation to the USAID for their interest shown in improving the quality of education for pupils.
He said:
This programme marks another landmark opportunity between the Government of Ghana and the United States as we launch these interventions to promote the quality of education in the country.
Sharon L. Cromer, the USAID/GHANA Mission Director, also commended the government’s efforts in strengthening the systems and capacity to deliver quality education services to all children.
She said:
Improving the literacy and numeracy skills of Ghana’s youngest citizens was foundational to achieving the President’s vision of Ghana Beyond Aid.
