From 41st to #1 in Just One Year!

The United States Agency for International Development's (USAID) Quality Improvement in Primary Schools (QUIPS) program has been instrumental in dramatically raising Kanga L/A Primary School's Performance Monitoring Test (PMT) scores. Following the QUIPS intervention, the school raised its PMT scores from a combined math and English average of 9.7% in 2000 to 71.7% in the 2001-2002 school year!

The USAID QUIPS program, which was initiated in 1997, works in collaboration with the Ministry of Education (MOE), the Ghana Education Service (GES), District officials, and community representatives, to increase the effectiveness of the primary education system. The program supports interventions at three levels: school, community, and district. At the school level, training is provided to teachers, head teachers, circuit supervisors, and other district officials. At the community level, awareness and mobilization are supported for strengthening School Management Committees and Parent Teacher Associations. Improving the management capacity at the district level includes planning, budgeting and financial administration. This last intervention also provides grants for the implementation of school improvement activities by communities, the District Chief Executive and District Education Office.

Each year, approximately 75 new schools and communities are selected to participate in the USAID QUIPS program. Each group receives two years of interventions similar to those described above. This year, 88 partnership schools were selected in 22 districts. To date, QUIPS has provided interventions in a total of 442 partnership schools and communities in all regions and in 96 districts, reaching a total of about 115,000 primary students. By 2004, QUIPS will have provided interventions in all of the 110 districts.

The seven-year QUIPS program is implemented through technical assistance from the Academy for Educational Development (AED), Education Development Center (EDC) and Catholic Relief Services (CRS) with $55,000,000 funding from USAID.

The Kanga L/A Primary School Success Story

Kanga L/A Primary School in the Northern Region of Ghana is one of the many schools that have benefited immensely from QUIPS. Before the QUIPS program, which is implemented in the three northern regions in Ghana by CRS, selected the school in the 2000/2001 academic year, the performance of the school was very poor. The pupils' mastery was so low that teaching English language in the upper primary was difficult. In the words of Mr. Mfum Godwin, the school's Headteacher, "Before [USAID/]CRS/QUIPS came to the school in 2000/2001 school year, the performance of the school left much to be desired. The performance of the pupils in the year in question was so low that teachers felt disappointed and did not accept posting to the school". The poor performance was confirmed by the results of the PMT conducted by the GES in the year 2000. Out of 42 schools from the district that took part in the PMT, Kanga L/A Primary placed 41st.

A year later, after the QUIPS/CRS intervention, Kanga L/A Primary placed 1st among the district's schools in the 2001/2002 PMT results. Describing the reaction of the school staff, Mr. Godwin said, "we became overwhelmed and went ecstatic with joy when the PMT results for the year 2001/2992 were officially declared on 11 July, 2002. It showed a tremendous improvement following [USAID/QUIPS/CRS] intervention and dedication to duty by my teachers." The dedication of school staff, community and the district, with support from USAID and CRS, led to this outstanding turnaround!