The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) says the newly introduced curriculum for basic schools is ready to be used but the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC) is skeptical.
Executive Chairman of the Coalition, Kofi Asare, has argued that while there is no doubt that the content of the new curriculum is up to international standards, the Ghana Education Service (GES) has more to do to ensure the successful implementation of the new policy.
“The issues surrounding the new curriculum have to do with the implementation agreement. The GES has not convinced us that we have enough French Teachers in all the 15,000 basic schools in Ghana to teach French.
“We are going to continue a system where are going to teach French only in urban and peri-urban areas. We are going to deepen the exclusion that has existed for the past 30 years…so until I see French teachers in every school, no one can tell me ‘we are ready’,” he said on Joy News PM Express programme.
GES has introduced a new curriculum to replace the current one from Kindergarten to Primary Six.
The curriculum forms part of sweeping reforms in basic education, beginning from the 2019/20 academic year.
Under the new curriculum, the subjects to be taught at the KG level have been reduced from seven to four, which are integrated into themes.
The themes for KG are Numeracy, Literacy, Creative Arts and Our World, Our People (citizenship).
French will be introduced in upper primary.
But Mr Asare said the GES cannot say it is ready to implement the new curriculum if its readiness is in the context of perpetuating the already existing rural-urban divide.
“You go to the rural areas and the Circuit Supervisor is responsible for monitoring up to 15 schools. And the Circuit Supervisor largely not mobile, even where they have motorbikes, fuel is an issue.
“We haven’t resolved the issues of the mobility of supervisors and the efficiency of supervision undertaken by the circuit supervisors,” he said.
He wants the GES to explain what it has done to resolve the issues of the mobility of supervisors and the efficiency supervision undertaken by Circuit Supervisors.
For him, the situation on the ground currently, assures no accountability, no value for money and a lack of effective monitoring.
“What will change this current arrangement will not be a curriculum but a well-implemented curriculum,” he said.
President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Angel Carbonu who was also a panel on the show wondered how the GES will hold teachers who do not meet the new set standards accountable.
He wants to know the standards required to qualify a place as a school.
This for him will help determine which schools should be closed down and the ones which should be maintained.
“When you have teacher A and B in different environments when one environment is largely endowed and the other is deficient in meeting the standards, how then will you be able to judge me and say that I have not applied the curriculum the way you want me to apply it
“That is why we need to have the established standard class size based on knowledge and research,” he said.
