The Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has described the just-ended National Standardised Test (NST) as very successful despite the delay in the distribution of test papers to a few communities.

Dr Adutwum who was visibly excited about the successful conduct of the test disclosed this to the media on Friday in Accra.

“I must say that although the exercise was very successful, I received reports of some challenges in the distribution of the test papers in some communities leading to delays in the starting time of the papers in such communities.

"These were quickly resolved but all these are going to be looked at critically going forward to avoid its re-occurrence in future tests,” he said.

He commended teachers, supervisors, invigilators and all other stakeholders who contributed in diverse ways towards the successful conduct of the maiden edition of the National Standardised Test across the country.

According to Dr Adutwum, the data collected during the exercise would go a long way to inform the government about the current state of understanding of numeracy and literacy at the basic level of education for the right remedial measures to be put in place.

He added that “now that the test was over, the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service and other stakeholders would be meeting to look at the conduct of the test and other matters after which the necessary remedial measures would be put in place to plan on the next move.”

The maiden edition of the test saw about 561,595 primary four pupils in public schools writing the test.

In all, a total of 2,609 examination centres and 15,911 schools were used as writing centres with an average of 200 pupils per centre.

The Education Minister had earlier in the day visited some of the test centres in Accra to ascertain how the test was being conducted.

Some of the centres he visited were the Osu Presby Girls and the Labone Senior High School which were also being used as test centres.

At the Osu Presby, a total of 242 pupils wrote the test while 151 pupils also wrote at the Labone SHS.