Plan International

In Ghana, Plan has been working with marginalized children and families since 1992. To date, it has reached over one million children from 500 communities in seven of the 10 administrative regions in Ghana. Plan Ghana’s programs are guided by a 5-year strategic plan with a main focus on promoting the rights of children and young people to health, education, protection and economic security. Plan Ghana’s education programs address issues of access, retention and quality including promoting gender-sensitive and child-friendly learning environments. Plan Ghana is currently supporting the education of 10,000 OOSC in 120 communities.

Founded in 1937, Plan International is one of the world’s oldest and largest international development organisations, working in partnership with millions of people around the world to end global poverty. Not for profit, independent and inclusive of all faiths and cultures, Plan has only one agenda: to improve the lives of children.

Plan invests more in education than any other program area. To that end, the organisation works so that children, their families and communities get the knowledge and life skills they need to achieve their full potential. Plan promotes safe-learning environments and equal access to quality education for all children – from early learning to secondary education. In 2015 alone, more than 112,480 education workers around the globe received training through Plan’s programs.

In Ghana, EAC and Plan have come together to enrol 90,000 OOSC in some of the country’s most disparate and economically disadvantaged regions – Upper West, Northern and Volta. The Reaching and Teaching Out of School Children in Ghana (REACH) project aligns with the government’s Basic Education policies and strategies to increase access, participation and close the gender gap in education. REACH will use the tested School for Life model, an accelerated-learning programme, to mobilise community support for education and help transition children into formal primary schools.

EAC and Plan have partnered in Uganda to enrol 60,000 OOSC who are of primary-school age and will enter school late, never enter school at all without support, or have attended previously but dropped out. This goal will be achieved through the Equity and Quality in Education project (EQE) that is implemented in collaboration with Uganda’s Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Sports. This project is operational in the country’s Lira and Kamuli districts and helps OOSC enrol and stay in school.

In an attempt to contribute to and align with the national strategies on accelerated educational access for OOSC in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, EAC and Plan have embarked upon a unique partnership called the Primary (School) Access through Speed Schools + (PASS+) Project. Designed to leverage the expertise and current educational investment, PASS+ aims to reach some of the most excluded children in West Africa and help them realise their right to education. The project will scale up Strømme Foundation’s Speed Schools model, improve the quality and supply of formal primary education and non-formal accelerated-learning programmes and focus on community mobilisation, capacity development and education governance. Ultimately, the PASS+ project seeks to enrol and mainstream more than 181,000 OOSC across Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger over the course of a five-year period.

For more information on this EAC Implementing Partner, please visit the Plan International website.