Implementing National Accelerated Language Programme ( NALAP ) in Northern Ghana : Lessons from the Wing Schools

Accelerated and complementary (alternative) approaches for schooling and education provision continue to gain grounds even at the post-2015 global mandate stages. The Wing School as an example of complementary basic education programme has made it possible to extend education to remote and deprived communities in Northern Regions of Ghana where the issue of non-enrolment and drop out incidences are high. However, the strength of the Wing Schools (WS) in Northern Ghana does not lie in its ability to boost enrolment alone but also to change the phase of schooling and learning. The language backgrounds of children from the hamlets and rural communities of the Northern part of Ghana are often from homogenous language contexts. This study reveals that when Wing Schools applied the NALAP programme to children from this background, leap to literacy and numeracy was smooth for the majority of the children. Recommendations from this for nationwide implementation has been presented. Keywords: NALAP, Wing Schools, Complementary Basic Education, Mother-tongue Education, Background to the study Globally, language as a vehicle for transferring instruction and mode of communication is a ubiquitous activity. The activities involved in communication are not negotiable (i.e., encoding, through a medium, then getting decoded at the other end and vice-versa). Communication is an accepted cultural pattern that makes people understand each other in verbal communication primarily. Effective communication brings about a many benefits to people and individuals making them seamlessly understand each other. Take, for instance, any two most enlightened persons on earth will only make sense of a discourse provided they have a common language code to crack. According Kwapong (2006) language is a system of human vocal behavior that has been culturally acquired and which allows for transmitting information in a smooth manner. Kwapong further refers to language as a tool that gives order and organization to human thinking. This language issue is especially crucial when one focuses on the schooling where communication is necessary for teaching and learning. 1Dr. Might Kojo Abreh is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Educational Research, Evaluation, and Development, University of Cape Coast. Email: might.abreh@ucc.edu. gh 1Dr. E. M. Wilmot is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics & ICT Education, University of Cape Coast, Ghana. Email: ewilmot@ucc.edu. gh. Implementing National Accelerated Language Programme (NALAP) in Northern Ghana: Lessons from the Wing Schools M. K. Abreh & E. M. Wilmot 102 The aforementioned argument is of crucial importance in highly multilingual countries like Ghana that has many indigenous languages spoken with its borders but have chosen the language of their colonizers as the medium of instruction in schools (E. M. Wilmot & Wilmot, 2013). In such contexts, the type of school language policy enacted and implemented could remain a lethal threat to learning outcomes for many school entrants. No doubt that the CREATE (2010: 4) report among other things indicate that “the primary school language policy is still unclear in implementation as teacher deployment is not linked to local language capability. " Studies like this invoke interrogation into the language policy and the dynamics of its application in the Ghanaian education system. The curriculum used in the Wing School (WS) Complementary Basic Education (CBE) schools explored in other contexts including an indication of resemblance with the nationally approved syllabus and those of the CBEs. Another issue that has seen more discussion in the literature has to do with the language of instruction since for the children is about the beginning of education for the out-of-school and the never enrolled child. In connection with that, Arkorful (2013), Casely-Hayford and Adom Ghartey (2007), and Abreh (2015) found sound local language literacy, functional curriculum, and participatory learning styles as part of the explanatory reasons for children accessing and participating in CBEs. According to Longden (2009) curriculum used in Complementary Education Programmes relates positively to access to education and schooling. According to Kwapong (2006), use of the first language of the child (popularly referred to as L1) in teaching Mathematics does not infer the significant difference in pupil performance when compared to instruction in English language (L2). That confirms the finding of Andoh-Kumi (2002) and Okyere (1999) who related that the use of the language of instruction policies as in rural and urban centers come with different outcomes. It again collaborates the findings of Østergaard (2013) that the L1 become stronger when used to clarify instruction in L2 in an accelerated learning programme. One of the curricula practices that have made an impact and has the potential link between pupils' content knowledge with local culture and the school environment is the language of instruction used (Arkorful, 2013; Pinnock, 2009; Trudell, 2009). Other root variables that might affect curriculum were found to be students' academic engagements in a small group or one-toone support. It was also identified that more effective than whole group interactions and participatory learning approaches (Soukup, Wehmeyer, Bashinski, & Bovaird, 2007; Vaughn, Linan-Thompson, Kouzekanani, Bryant, Dickson, & Blozis, 2003). The Wing School (WS) complementary basic education programme aimed at providing increased access to quality education and training (ACE, 2013). The Wing School according to Ghana Education Service (GES) can be defined as an appendage to an original although it may locate in another neighborhood that children are enrolled. It usually enrolls children from Kindergarten to lower primary. In the Wing School concepts estimation, once an individual completes up to third grade, the individual would have been fully-grown to treck a neighboring school which has upper primary (ACE, 2011; Ampiah, Fletcher, Abreh & Davis, 2012; Abreh, 2015). Learning disparities among disadvantaged groups begin in early childhood and usually persist throughout all levels of education (UNESCO, 2014). Thus children with low academic achievement are likely to experience difficulties in keeping up with and African Journal of Educational Studies in Mathematics and Sciences Vol. 14 (2) 2018 103 understanding the curriculum in later grades provides and, consequently, are more vulnerable to grade repetition and dropout. The curriculum is at the heart of these teaching and learning challenges; it can either hinder or facilitate improved learning outcomes (UNESCO, 2014). Therefore, it is almost a requirement for teachers to support an innovative and inclusive curriculum that uses language in a standard way to all students. When done this way, the possibility of excluding individual children in the learning space reduces. The curriculum research and interventions are fast promoting the values, attitudes and transferable skills that pupils need. Subsequently, there is the need for bridging the gap between curriculum and its components as against the assessment strategies employed. House (1979) demonstrated that education and reform on large-scale could only occur when the socio-historical and political ambiance supports it at a particular point in time. In other words, for educational innovations to succeed, there is the need for close collaboration among the teachers who prepare the pupils. The UNESCO's (2014) Global Monitoring Report (GMR) revealed that the key to ensuring that children succeed in school depends on availing pupils with critical foundation skills, such as those related to literacy and numeracy, reading and comprehension. Without these necessary skills, many children will struggle to keep up with the prescribed curriculum, but end up widening the gap in their learning achievement. The attainment of the necessary foundation skills at the right time for children of school going age is crucial but takes individual effort to reach children who inherited disadvantaged beginning and were left marginalized. In early childhood, curricula need to ensure that pre-school education is of good quality and supports the transition to primary school. At the foundation level, curricula need to focus on delivering core foundation skills at an appropriate pace, both informal and non-formal settings (Casely-Hayford, Seidu, Campbell, Quansah, Gyabaah, & Adam, 2013). Children who have dropped out can catch up through second-chance accelerated learning programmes designed to meet their specific needs. Within schools, a bilingual curriculum can enable children from ethnic minorities to learn as much and as fast as their peers. According to Darling-Hammond and Baratz Snowden (2005), learning should be in practice as in the case of apprenticeship. Also, learning can occur through "strategic documentation of practice" involving "classroom plans, videotapes, and work samples children" that can systematically study by groups of teachers who focus their analysis on particular ideas or practices. Curricula of schools also promote inclusivity and an avenue for children from different backgrounds, to avoid adverse stereotypes of the disadvantaged (Arkorful, 2013). According to Kenner (2004), children have opportunities to learn language from home as well as from their community setting where multilingual interaction is fostered or established. Kenner also mentioned that children had been observed to make links between their languages, as demonstrated by six-year-olds growing up in London and learning to write in Chinese, Arabic or Spanish as well as in English. Children in complementary school setting usually switched between languages, and that tends to create bilingual texts at complementary school and home. Indeed, this situation well described by Kenner as Implementing National Accelerated Language Programme (NALAP