Titagya Schools

Transforming Lives through Education in Ghana

Location: Ghana

Titagya Schools:  Grantee in 2010

Titagya Schools is dedicated to expanding the reach and improving the quality of education in northern Ghana, a region where the rural literacy rate is 22% and the average income is less than a dollar a day.

The roots of Titagya extend back to 2006, when Haverford College intern Andrew Garza worked for a micro-finance institution in Dalun, where he met two young community leaders who were passionate about finding ways to strengthen their village. The three deliberated about various development needs in the community but ultimately decided to focus on education. There were no high-quality early educational facilities within a half an hour of Dalun, so the trio decided to start a school themselves. In 2009, they opened a pre-school for 50 students.

Titagya’s focus on pre-elementary-school-aged children stems from research that demonstrates that top-notch early education has a higher impact than interventions in later years. In pre-school and kindergarten, children acquire important social and emotional skills, build core pre-reading and math capabilities, and develop a life-long love of learning. And, their parents develop the habit of supporting their children’s education. Teachers in later years set higher expectations for students who perform well initially, creating a positive cycle for students who start strong. Evidence supports the notion that these gains from early education persist over time, and studies show that every dollar spent on high-quality early education yields 10 to 17 dollars in societal benefits.

Stanford Graduate School of Business classmate Skip West brought a Titagya grant application to Project Redwood in 2010, when Titagya proposed to open a kindergarten to build on the success of their pre-school. Skip has long been bringing students from his alma mater, Haverford, into his consumer electronics companies to learn about product design and development, and Garza was one of them. And, as a 21-year old, Skip had also spent a year as an intern in northern Ghana; that shared experience fueled Skip’s enthusiasm for Garza’s work with Titagya.

By 2014, Titagya had opened 4 schools with 300 students, staffed with 12 teachers and 10 support personnel. Their students’ math skills and understanding of the relationships between numbers are three years more advanced than that of their public school peers. The bi-lingual experience they receive in Titagya schools prepares them well for subsequent education; primary school teachers have identified Titagya “alumni” as some of their best communicators.

Titagya has some big plans. They’ve led 3 educator training workshops for public school teachers, and hope to partner with the government of Ghana to significantly expand that. They plan also to open many more schools over the next five years, in Ghana and in other areas of sub-Sahran Africa.

For more information please visit titaguyaschools.org.

GRANT SUMMARY AND PURPOSE

2010:   • $10,000 to construct a kindergarten in Dalun, Ghana

IMPACT

High quality early education for 75 students a year