ActionAid, a non-governmental organisation, which instituted a rural education voluntary (REVs) scheme to provide tuition for most of the basic schools in the Bawku West District is withdrawing its financial support due to lack of funds.
As a result, more than 2,000 pupils in the district would be denied education next academic year if the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the district assembly do not put their act together to retain more than 71 volunteer teachers in the district. This would mean that the pupils would have to go back to shepherding and farming, from where they were withdrawn into the classroom.
REV involves the use of senior secondary school (SSS) leavers as volunteer teachers in deprived communities as a way of improving access to quality education for deprived children. This came to light when a team of journalists visited the Sapriga Primary school in the Bawku West District as part of a week-long tour of the northern and upper east regions.
The only trained teacher in the school is the headmaster. He described the district as a very deprived one with little resources due to the low revenue base. He said but for the district assembly common fund, most of the districts in the region would have collapsed.
He commended Actionaid for its numerous projects in the district to support the communities noting that ?but for Actionaid, this part of the country would have been worse off.
