Education Minister launches Partners in Play Project to empower children

A new education project to help teachers incorporate play-based learning methodology in the delivery of their lessons has been launched at a colourful ceremony in Koforidua in the Eastern Region last Thursday.

The Partners in Play Project (P3) will empower Ghanaian children to become creative, engaged, and dedicated to life-long learning.

The four-year project is funded by The LEGO Foundation and implemented by Right To Play in partnership with the Ministry of Education and its agencies.

Addressing the ceremony, Education Minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh said the government and the Ministry of Education are open to “innovative strategies” from partners that will bring about quality improvement in the education Ghanaians enjoy.

“Right To Play and The LEGO Foundation have responded to this invitation as others had done already,” the Minister said, adding more than 3,500,000 Ghanaian girls and boys aged 4-12 will benefit from the Partners in Play Project “through a scalable and replicable play-based learning model.”

“In collaboration with GES and other MoE agencies, Right To Play will support the development and implementation of training frameworks for teacher's capacity building through the cascade model to be well developed to ensure that Kindergarten and primary school teachers have the capacity to implement effectively the standards-based curriculum,” Dr Opoku Prempeh told the gathering.

“I am optimistic that our teachers will continue to avail themselves to the opportunities we provide to adopt the Play-Based Learning methodologies to continue to improve their teaching practices that foster inclusive and learner centredness,” the Education Minister added.

Dr. Opoku Prempeh was confident the project will achieve the expected results and invited all “partners and stakeholders to support the implementation of the Partners in Play Project so that it benefits the targeted learners in KG and Primary schools in Ghana.”

“I am glad that Right To Play and the LEGO Foundation and the Ministry of Education can partner in this venture not only to influence teacher capacity development in play-based learning and teaching approaches but to also build the capacity of district education officials in charge of teachers training so that these approaches are scaled up in our schools, starting with the 10,000 schools under GALOP,” he concluded.

Also speaking at the ceremony, Country Director of Right To Play Ghana, Josephine Mukakalisa said: “at the heart of the P3 is the play-based learning/Learning through play approach.”

According to her, “the project is implemented to support the Ministry of Education to address the challenges related to teaching practices, schools support and management, institutional capacity to supervise and monitor the curriculum implementation process.”

This she explained: “aligns with and supports the implementation of the GALOP initiative, targeting 10,000 primary schools.”

The ultimate goal of the Partners in Play Project (P3) is to improve the quality of education of Ghanaian girls and boys aged four to 12 through playful learning.