“They Took My Home, But They Can’t Take My Future”
Education is the cornerstone to sustainability and prosperity of every refugee. In Ghana, in accordance with the Global Compact on refugees, education is integrated into the national systems.
UNHCR Ghana works closely with the Ghana Education Service in ensuring quality education at the various camps hosting refugees and in the urban settings.
Support UNHCR offered at the Basic and Senior High school levels:
- UNHCR provides textbooks to children in all the camp schools to complement what the Ghana Education Service provides. The office also supplies stationery to refugee and host community children enrolled in camp-based schools.
- Classroom furniture is also provided for camp and host community schools to make the classroom conducive for teaching and learning
- To help build the capacity of teachers, UNHCR assists with training of teachers in camp and host community schools.
- The office provides support to refugees through the payment of school levies which sometimes serves as bottlenecks that may prevent refugees from accessing basic education.
- UNHCR supplies all teaching and learning materials to camp based schools.
- The office engages the services of qualified refugee volunteer teachers in the 3 camp-based schools to teach French as a result of lack of French teachers at the Basic level.
- To help improve learning outcomes, UNHCR has built a 30-seater capacity ICT center in Egyeikrom school as well as a community library in Fetentaa.
- UNHCR partnered Varkey Foundation and Worldreader to enhance the teaching and learning of numeracy and literacy in all the camp-based schools as well as the Ampain host community JHS. E-readers have been provided to all the schools.
- School uniforms are provided to all refugee school children enrolled in school through Cash-Based Intervention (CBI) given to parents of children enrolled in Basic school.
- As a way of helping the districts that host refugees to retain quality teachers, UNHCR has built teacher’s quarters for the Ghana Education Service in the communities hosting refugees in three (3) different districts.
- UNHCR built a Junior High School (JHS) facility in Egyeikrom Camp which was handed over to the Ghana Education Service to ease pressure on the only JHS previously serving three (3) host communities and the camp.
Collaboration with Partners:
UNHCR works with its implementing Partner the Christian Council of Ghana (CCG) and the Government of Ghana to ensure that refugees have access to Basic and Senior High Schools same as nationals.
With the support of the German-funded DAFI educational scholarship programme, some refugees access tertiary education in various universities, technical institutes and para-professional training programs across the country.
Other support by way of infrastructure:
In 2008, UNHCR handed over 3 schools to the Ghana Education Service (GES) in the refugee host community of Gomoa-Buduburam. In 2010, a fourth school was handed over to GES in the Ellembelle District, where the Krisan refugee camp is located. These donations ensured that refugees and Ghanaian children in refugee host communities have equal access to basic education which is a fundamental human right.