AFRICANA CHILDREN’S EDUCATION FUND Inc.
GHANA YOUTH LEADERSHIP ACADEMY PROJECT,

PROVIDING HIGHEST QUALITY K THROUGH 12 GRADE EDUCATION

MISSION STATEMENT:
Africana Children’s Education Fund Inc, hereafter referred to as ACEF, is a tax-exempt 501 c (3) public charitable organization dedicated to the highest quality education for the youth in Ghana, West Africa.   The primary mission of the Youth Leadership Academy is to provide educational opportunities for Ghanaian youth; thus enabling them to develop effective citizenship and leadership skills for the twenty-first century. 

ACEF will accomplish this mission by providing a first class K-12 educational institution that serves children from different socio-economic classes of Ghana.  In the context of globalization of the world economy, the Academy focuses on local, national and international education, including a curriculum which embraces native and foreign languages and STEM COURSES, African history, world history and cultures, world politics and economic development, public health, environmental studies, international relations, democracy and leadership training.

THE NEED FOR THE YOUTH LEADERSHIP ACADEMY:

1.  Education remains the only sure means for upward mobility of the youth growing up in poverty and deprivation.   Yet Ghana, like most African countries, has limited opportunities for high quality educational achievement for its youth.
2. Most Ghanaian rural as well as urban communities are characterized by poverty and high illiteracy rates.
3. Most Ghanaian children enrolled in schools have no basic modern educational facilities [such as running water, indoor toilets, electricity, tables and chairs, telephones, computers and internet communication], and rigorous curriculum to prepare them to compete in the global economy.   Therefore, we find the majority of High School graduates who are functionally illiterate and unemployable in the modern world economy.

 

TARGET POPULATION IN GHANA:

Ghana gained political independence from the British on March 6, 1957.  It is now a peaceful country with a Presidency and a two-party parliamentary system of government.   The Government of Ghana’s July 2011 Population estimates puts the population of Ghana at 24,791,073. In terms of religions, the Ghana population is 70 percent Christian, 16 percent Moslem, 8.5 percent Traditional worshipers and 1.0 percent other religions.  The Ghanaian population is very young, with 36.5 percent of the population falling into the 0-14 age bracket, and 60 percent falling into the 15-64 age bracket.  The 2011 population estimates also reported that 20 percent of children of school-going age were NOT enrolled in school; meaning that 750,000 to one million children are still out of school because of resource constraints in building schools, providing adequate textbooks and training of new teachers.   All Ghanaian children are legally expected to remain in school to age 14, but this regulation is not enforced.  Children who remain outside the school system do so out of poverty and parental ignorance and non-compliance.  Ghana's spending on education has varied between 28–40% of its annual budget in the past decade, and yet it has fallen short in the provision of schools, textbooks and trained teachers.  In December 2006, UNICEF/UNAIDS estimated that there were 1,000,000 orphan children in Ghana.  These orphans are most likely to fall into the group of children who are not enrolled in school, due to shortage of resources available to orphan caregivers in the extended family network.   The dropout rate in Ghana’s High School system remains as high as 30 percent, resulting from poverty, lack of student interest, lack of teaching aids, or lack of parental interest.  Most K-12 schools in Ghana are teaching Internet Communication Technology courses without computers; they are teaching STEM courses without textbooks, libraries, audio visual aids, and trained teachers.  Almost all rural schools in Ghana have very high student to teacher ratios and do NOT have indoor toilets, electricity, school buses, libraries or adequate furniture for students.

Thus the ACEF proposes the establishment of this Ghana Youth Leadership Academy to focus on correcting these inadequacies described above and setting the highest achievement standards for students and teachers.  The Academy will aim at achieving 100 percent graduation rates, and preparing students for higher education.  It will also provide educational opportunities to those who are being denied access to education as a result of poverty, parental ignorance and non-enforcement of educational requirements for every child of school going age.

Special Features and Facilities | Timeline | Funding