Some head-Teachers at Kyebi in the Abuakwa south district of the Eastern Region have revealed that the Community Participation for Sustainable School for All (COMPASS) has helped improve students’ academic performance since its inception.
Implemented in the district three years ago, the initiative, they said had helped the schools improve its Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) performance in Maths, creative art, and English.
This was made known at a media tour organised by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), to assess the improvements of schools on the project.
The two-day media tour took the team to the Kyebi Ebenezer Presbyterian Primary School and Apedwa Newtown Municipal Assembly Primary School in the Abuakwa south district.
COMPASS is a Four -year project implemented by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in partnership with Ghana Education Service in order to help improve learning outcomes in numeracy at the primary level through collaboration between communities and schools.
The project, launched in 2020 and ended this year, was implemented in 60 Municipal and district Assemblies in Volta, Oti and Eastern Region.
In an interview with the media, the Headmistress of Kyebi Ebenezer Presby School, Mrs Irene Odonkor, said the academic performance of students in Mathematics had improved significantly since the inception of the COMPASS project in the school.
She also noted that the COMPASS project had been very helpful in teaching and learning process in the school since it introduced alternative approach to teaching learners in Mathematics.
“Our school’s assessment has shown that before the project, less than 30 per cent of students were proficient at mathematics, however, after the implementation of the project in our school, it has shown that more than 70 per cent of our pupils are proficient in the subject.
Also girls were scared of mathematics and used to fail a lot but now they are not afraid of math again so they are doing well,” she said.
Speaking to the media after touring the basic schools, the Director of Education in the Abuakwa South Municipality of the Eastern Region, Mrs Comfort Ofori-Appiah, said the project had helped students in the Municipality to gain knowledge in solving mathematical problems.
She further noted that the Ghana Education Service was going to do all it could to help sustain the COMPASS project in the district.
Mrs Ofori-Appiah stated that mechanisms have been put in place to improve participatory school management and information sharing through establishing and implementing well-functioning School Management Committees to the project.
She commended JICA for its support to Municipal Education Directorate to improve upon at education at the district level.
The Project Team Lead, COMPASS, Mr Bright Dey, said an estimated 500,000 pupils and 1,868 primary schools were beneficiaries of the project.
According to him, the Schools were made up of 1,164 non- Ghanaian Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP) schools from 33 districts in the Eastern Region, 517 non-GALOP schools from 18 districts in the Volta region and 187 non-GALOP schools from nine districts in the Oti region.
“The purpose of the project was achieved at the end because the percentage of pupils who obtain a correct response rate of 70 per cent or more at the endline assessment improves by 30 percentage points or more against a baseline,” Mr Dey said.
FROM CECILIA LAGBA YADA, KYEBI
