USAID Announces Additional $2 Million to Fund Text Books for Ghana's School Children

CHICAGO, Sept. 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Henrietta Fore, the Acting Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), announced that Chicago State University (CSU) would receive a $2 million grant to allow it to develop, produce and distribute textbooks for schoolchildren in Ghana.

The award comes two years after CSU received $3 million under President Bush's African Education Initiative to fund its Textbooks and Learning Materials Program (TLMP) in Ghana, part of an overall Administration effort to provide 15 million textbooks and other learning materials to Africa's children by 2010.

The new funding will allow the university to provide additional textbooks for children at the kindergarten level and grades one through three.

"We are proud of our extensive association with American colleges and universities, such as Chicago State University, where we tap into the resources and know-how of the best and brightest of this country," Fore said in announcing the additional funding.

At the same time as Fore's announcement, Deputy Chief of Mission from the Ghanaian Embassy to the United States, Irene Addo, announced an additional $1 million grant on behalf of the Ghanaian Government to an institution in the United States for the same effort.

"This is the first time in Ghana's history that books have been created in partnership with the United States which has countrywide distribution and sustainable impact," said Adama Conteh, executive director of CSU's Office of International Programs and the program director for TLMP.

The African Education Initiative is a $600 million, multi-year effort to improve basic education in Africa, and compliments USAID's long-term education efforts on the continent.

For more information about USAID's education programs, please visit http://www.usaid.gov.

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