In the farming community of Bincheratanga, nestled within the Nanumba North municipality of Northern Ghana, the local school faced growing challenges.

Community members described the classroom block as showing visible signs of wear, the headteacher’s office had become increasingly difficult to use, and whenever clouds gathered, students and teachers would pause their lessons out of concern that the aging structures might not hold up against the rain.

In Siiru Village, some 400 kilometers away, the school building stood firm, but the children were distracted by their empty stomachs.

Although the school feeding program is part of national policy, guaranteeing a daily meal for every student, the school feeding program had not yet begun in Siiru and many children left school at midday to go home to eat and didn’t return for the day.

In both villages, these conditions made it difficult to attract and retain children. Parents and leaders didn’t realize they had the power to change the situation.

CLEAR’s social accountability approaches

The Citizen-led Action for Educational Accountability and Responsiveness (CLEAR) Project is supported by Education Out Loud and implemented by School for Life and other civil society organizations in Ghana.

CLEAR works to enable community-led initiatives as a temporary measure to deal with immediate challenges, while enabling spaces for citizen groups to engage with relevant government actors to advocate for permanent solutions.

CLEAR complements existing government efforts by equipping communities with tools to engage constructively with education authorities.

Awakening accountability in rural Ghana

In Bincheratanga and Siiru villages, parents, teachers, community leaders, and other stakeholders were brought together to discuss the challenges facing schools and to explore solutions.

As stories emerged of children missing school to fetch water, work as farmhands, or take care of younger children, the room grew heavy with silence.

Asantewah Yeboah Diato recalls how the elder Mohammed Bashim took the floor, his voice shaking with emotion: “We used to take pride in shaping the lives of our children through this school. But we have watched it fall apart, and with it, the legacy we built has faded,” he said, reflecting the community's realization that they could and should do something about it.

A spark spreading across communities

They immediately started working together to restore the headteacher’s office. Simultaneously, they advocated for public funds to establish a water reservoir, ensuring safe drinking water for the students.

In Siiru, the community response was equally impactful. Through dialogue, the chief of the community decided to allocate land for a school farm.

It was also decided that the farm should be managed by the School Management Committee and Parent Teacher Association, with all community members supporting and playing monitoring and accountability roles.

As one father put it: “We’ve realized the change starts with us.”

Asantewah Yeboah Diato reflected: “This is what CLEAR stands for—helping communities discover their own power to demand and create change. True transformation begins when citizens lead.”

Support is still needed—Siiru awaits inclusion in the school feeding program, and Bincheratanga continues to seek additional infrastructure to accommodate its growing student body.

Yet in both villages, the spark has been lit, and communities are moving forward with renewed energy and determination, laying the groundwork for lasting educational transformation.

In Ghana, GPE is supporting the Ministry of Education with investments totaling over US$110 million including Infrastructure investments which are an integral part of the GPE funded Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP) - Ghana's flagship project for boosting foundational learning - with a focus on underserved areas in the north and south, and in cocoa producing regions.

The support includes capital expenditures for infrastructure and maintenance, replacing informal or inadequate learning spaces with formal school buildings, improving teacher houses and eco-friendly construction.

The second phase of GALOP, which started in 2025, scales up interventions to cover all 14,000 public kindergartens and 16,000 public primary schools, ensuring 100% coverage of public primary schools.

EOL partners complement this work by strengthening civil society’s role in promoting transparency, accountability, and inclusive dialogue in education.