The acting Director-General of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA), John Mensah Anang, has revealed that the Council has approved over 1000 books for basic schools in Ghana.
This comes at the back of the concerns raised by some stakeholders of the education sector on the delay of textbooks after the new curriculum for basic schools was introduced from the 2019/20 academic year.
But John Mensah Anang in an interview with Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show explained that due to the processes involved in curriculum and textbook development, it is expected that the release of new textbooks will be delayed.
The Director-General disclosed, however, that about 1,100 books have been approved for basic school.
“Currently we have been able to approve over 1,100 books. Those who are interested in letting government buy their books for distribution to the public schools, I think they are even at the last stage of competitive tendering or bidding because we are not involved. Ours is to assess and approve the books. For those who need confidential report, when we assessed all the challenges and the best things in the book, we forwarded them.
So, for books now over 1,000 have been approved and they are on our websites though we have some technical challenges on the websites”.
Commenting on the recent brouhaha on the delay in textbooks and unapproved textbooks in the markets, he explained: “For private schools, the government does not supply them books but parents go to the markets and buy them the books. Some publishers have taken advantage of this situation to put their books out there without even going through the approved process or guidelines to get their books approved for the market”.
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.
By: Alberta Dorcas N D Armah
