Five thousand children have benefited from the cycle 8 of the government’s Complementary Basic Education Program (CBEP), which commenced in February 2023. The beneficiaries include both underprivileged children and out-of- school children in parts of the country. The Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, announced this in the 2023 Mid-Year Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government in Parliament. ‘Under our Complementary Education for underprivileged groups, including out of-school children, Government commenced the implementation of Cycle 8 of the Complementary Basic Education Programme (CBEP) in February 2023, with a total enrolment of 5,000 learners as at end June 2023,’ the Finance Minister said. The CBEP is an accelerated learning programme, which provides literacy and numeracy classes in the mother tongue to out-of-school children between 8 and 14 years of age. The classes are taught by volunteers in local communities over an intensive 9-month period, after which time many students re-enter the formal education system. According to Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, the implementation of the programme forms part of the government’s social protection initiatives to protect the poor and the vulnerable. ‘Mr. Speaker, the government continues to sustain social protection programmes to protect the poor and the vulnerable. The half-year performance of the identified programmes are provided…,’ the Minister said. Aside from the CBEP programme, the Minister gave updates on other social protection initiatives, which are equally benefiting the underprivileged and poor in society. Mr Ofori-Atta made mention of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme, which witnessed an increase in the monthly grant of GHS32.00 to GHS64.00 for one-member household and GHS38.00 to GHS76.00 for two-member households for first half of the year. On the School Feeding Programme, the Minister indicated that coverage increased from 1,671,777 beneficiaries in 2016 to 3,801,491 beneficiaries by June 2023. He also said the feeding grants cost per meal, per child, per day increased from GHS1.00 to GHS1.20 for the 2023 academic year. He again revealed that the government had also settled all arrears owed to caterers under the programme for the second and third terms of the 2022 academic year as well as the first term of 2023. On Capitation Grant, the Minister indicated that the policy contributed to increased enrolment in public basic schools from 6,048,897 pupils for the 2021 / 2022 academic year to 6,114,302 pupils for the 2022/2023 academic year. The Free Senior High School (Free SHS)/ Technical and Vocational Education and Training (Free TVET) programmes also witnessed an appreciable increase. According to Mr Ofori-Atta, a total of 447,396 first-year students enrolled during the 2022/2023 academic year to bring the total number of Free SHS/TVET beneficiaries to more than 1.3 million students. The Minister also said the government would continue with the construction of nine state-of-the-art TVET centres to offer modern facilities and equipment, enable effective skills training and empower young people with the relevant skills required for employment and entrepreneurship.
Source: Ghana News Agency