Overordnede mål
The objective of this project is to strengthen civil society to lobby and advocate for quality mother tongue based education (MTBE) for children of a minority language community in Ghana to ensure parity in education for all children in Ghana.
Umiddelbare mål
This extended pilot programme will serve two purposes. First, it provides data that shows how children’s literacy abilities have increased, because of the Dagbani literacy lessons. These data will be used in advocacy and lobby activities with the community and the GES teachers. Secondly, starting only in 5 schools and communities in primary 2 will provide a laboratory setting to understand how at community level (teachers, parents and key community leaders), advocacy and lobby can be done to change people’s attitudes towards using mother tongue in lower primary classes. These insights can be used to involve stakeholders to expand and scale up the implementation of MTB MLE in Dagbani.
Målgrupper
The direct beneficiaries of the intervention will be 250 Dagomba children and their teachers in 5 model primary classes. They will enjoy education in their mother tongue and are actually provided with opportunities to learn, maintain their identity as Dagomba, appreciating their own linguistic and cultural heritage. In particular, girls will benefit from using mother tongue in school as that is often the only language they will have heard in and around the home. The indirect beneficiaries are the Dagomba community (children and parents). Through this project, their language will be used in school and they will receive better education. They will realise that their linguistic and cultural heritage is something that is rich and enriching their lives and livelihoods. The project will lead to language revitalization and development. LDP will indirectly benefit from the project by gaining more experience and building capacity advocating for and implementing MTB MLE, facilitating reading interventions, project management and general administrational skills. Other indirect beneficiaries of this project include other minority language groups living in Ghana. This project will serve as an example for other minority language groups how the go about implementing the language in education policy in their area.
Resume
The objective of this project is to strengthen civil society to lobby and advocate for quality mother tongue based education for children of a minority language community in order to ensure equality in education for all children in Ghana. Ghana counts more than 60 ethnic groups with their own cultures and languages, the Dagomba people being one of them. The government has passed a law stating that the language of instruction in primary schools should be the children’s mother tongue. However, implementation is lagging behind, causing a high rate of dropouts among children from minority groups. This project will strengthen an existing mother tongue based program among the Dagomba people, training teachers and developing teaching materials. The results from the schools where the trained teachers are working will be used for advocating. Advocacy groups within the community will be formed and trained to lobby and advocate for the use of mother tongue as language of instruction in schools.