Community participation in the planning and the management of the community school alliance (CSA) project in Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam district

Abstract

This is a case study of how community members were involved in the planning and management of the Community School Alliance (CSA) project in the Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam District (AEED). The main objective was to evaluate the nature and importance of community participation in the planning and management of the CSA project in AEED. The design of the study was evaluative, descriptive and cross sectional in nature. In all, four partnership school communities, namely Aworodo, Bisiase, Essiam and Fawomanye, were studied to find out how the communities were involved in the CSA project. The main stakeholders of the project were the CSA, the District Education Office (DEO), and the communities. The lottery method of simple random sampling technique was used to select 100 community members. Purposive sampling was also adopted to select three staff from the CSA, DEO and the AEEDA. In total, a sample of 185 was used for the study. Structured questionnaire, interview schedules and focus group discussion guides were used to collect data from the respondents of the study. Findings from the study indicated that the utilization of local resources, training and supervision as well as the use of existing community based group and institutions helped in the successful implementation and maintenance of the community based projects, in all four communities. It is, therefore, recommended that communities should be encouraged to identify their own project so as to take advantage of the strong relationship between project identification and implementation.