Governments in West Africa have been urged to dedicate at least seven to ten per cent of their basic education budget to tackle the growing out-of-school children in the subregion by investing in Accelerated Education Programmes (AEPs).
The AEPs are flexible, age-appropriate programmes that allow children who have missed out on education for any reason to catch up.
Dr Leslie Casely-Hayford, Director of Associates For Change, delivering a communique at the end of a two-day stakeholder engagement on tackling out-of-school children crisis in West Africa, said budgetary allocations and funding to addressing the challenge was inadequate and needed to be increased.
The event organised by the Associates For Change in partnership with the Centre For the Study of Economies of Africa, Dalan Development Consultants and the Complementary Education Agency, brought together stakeholders in the space from Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Mali and Burkina Faso.
Dr Casely-Hayford said out of school population was still on the rise globally with Nigeria having more than 19 million children out of school, Ghana with 1.2 million, Burkina Faso with 3.5 million, and Mali and Sierra Leone with 1.0 million.
The West African subregion holds 40 per cent of the 244 million children and youth between the ages of six and 18 worldwide who are out of school.
She said the demand and supply barriers to entry and completion of primary education persisted, including poverty, social cultural practices and beliefs along with lack of school infrastructure and trained teachers especially in rural deprived communities.
Dr Casely-Hayford said a proven-cost effective solution for governments in tackling the challenge was to scale up accelerated education programmes, including speed schools and complementary basic education programmes focused on children who had never attended school or dropped out.
“The Accelerated Education Programme (AEP) model reaches the most deprived and extreme poverty areas, including conflict zones in some countries. Over 90 per cent of AEPs transition into upper primary school after they complete the AEP courses.
“Learning outcomes are achieved in a shorter time frame compared to the formal system. Often, AEP beneficiaries achieved foundation literacy and numeracy within one year, skipping 4-6 years of primary schooling,” she added.
Dr Casely-Hayford, therefore, called for the recognition and integration of AEP into national and educational system through appropriate policies and legislation to ensure its sustainability.
Mr Emmanuel Ntim, Deputy Executive Director of Complementary Education Agency, said the Agency was targeting to reintegrate 10,000 out of school children into schools this year, adding that, they would from 2025 be targeting to reintegrate 20,000 out-of-school children yearly.
He said an area in terms of funding they were considering was advocating that any development partner that signed an MOU or agreement with the Ministry of Education, certain percentage of that funding would be allocated for out of school situation in the country.
“We are also targeting other sources of funding like where we will have one per cent of the basic education budget given to the Ministry of Education to support the out of school situation in the country,” he added.
GNA