Education Policy Research and Advocacy Organization, Africa Education Watch has charged the government to focus on taking teachers through rigorous training for a better appreciation of the newly introduced curriculum.
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According to the organization’s Programme Officer, Kwasi Nimo Jnr, it is quite unfortunate that the government decided to rollout a new curriculum without adequately preparing teachers, and making available the required study materials to students.
“It is quite unfortunate that we are rolling out a curriculum when we do not have the necessary requirement to support it. Now, the curriculum has been introduced and the teachers do not understand what they are supposed to teach the students and now the children do not also have the required books to support their learning and revision,” he said on Happy98.9FM’s Epa Hoa Daben political show.
Kwesi Nimo, expressing his doubts on the kind of knowledge teachers are imparting to students, stated, “We need to take teachers through an extensive training exercise into the curriculum with students also being provided with the required textbooks. Teachers have had to improvise in the classroom and they have been complaining for a long time.”
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He argues the African Education Watch predicted this hardship in the country’s education sector but the authorities refused to hear them out. “Now the government has waited and is reacting to these problems now. How can you introduce a new curriculum without the right training and materials when our educational system is in a recovery phase?” he asked.
Earlier this year, the Coalition of Concerned Teachers, expressed that teachers and students in the Basic and Junior High Schools are yet to receive teaching and learning materials two years after the introduction of a new curriculum at these levels.
According to the coalition, the unavailability of these materials has affected teaching and learning and can be attributed to the exposure of students to unapproved and stereotypical textbooks.
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Some stakeholders of the education sector have raised concerns on the delay of textbooks after the new curriculum for basic schools was introduced from the 2019/20 academic year.
The acting Director-General of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA), John Mensah Anang, in a recent interview, however, revealed that the Council has approved over 1000 books for basic schools in Ghana.
