Government urged to provide funds to expand Non Formal Education

Cape Coast, Aug. 10, GNA - Mr Gideon Fianya, Central Regional Coordinator of the Non-Formal Education Division (NFED) of the Ministry of Education, on Tuesday appealed to the government to make more funds available to enable the sector to expand its activities nationwide.

This, he said, would help to reduce the high rate of illiteracy among the populace.

He pointed out that apart from imparting knowledge to learners, the Division also trained them to acquire employable skills through income generating activities such as gari processing, oil palm extraction, soap making, bee keeping, snail and fish farming to sustain their interest and help improve their standard of living.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Cape Coast, Mr Fianya said one of the objectives of the programme was to make learners economically sound and viable.

He regretted that even though the programme was very beneficial, most Ghanaians were ignorant about its activities and had negative perception for it stressing that of late patronage had gone down considerably compared to its initial stages.

He mentioned other advantages of the programme to include the creation of employment for supervisors and incentives given to facilitators and learners to improve on their living standards.

Mr Fianya appealed to people who were 15 years and above but could read or write to take advantage of the programme to acquire formal education and also learn employable skills to better their lot.

Among the challenges in executing the programme were inadequate materials for neo-literates to start work after their course, lack of refresher courses for staff and inadequate tools for facilitators.