“This cannot be an accident.”

That was the assessment of the President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Jacob Anaba, as he reacted to the discovery of controversial gender identity content in a Senior High School teacher manual that has since been withdrawn.

Speaking on Joy News’ PM Express on Wednesday, Mr Anaba said the inclusion of the material raised serious questions about intent, especially given Ghana’s past rejection of similar content.

“If you recall, in 2017, this was put in the curriculum, and we all raised hue and cry about it,” he said. “And the government promised they were removing it. In 2019, that was in the curriculum.”

He said that history made the reappearance of the content deeply troubling.

“So one will be very surprised that if you lived in Ghana at that time, you will even contemplate putting it in any document,” he said. “So we are even surprised to hear that it is in the manual and not in the curriculum.”

The controversy centres on the Year Two Physical Education and Health (Elective) Teacher Manual developed in 2024 to support the rollout of the new SHS curriculum introduced last academic year.

Although the manual was approved, printed with public funds and distributed nationwide, NaCCA later acknowledged that sections on “gender identity” did not align with Ghanaian culture, norms and values.

The manuals have since been withdrawn and replaced with a revised version that reflects a biological understanding of gender.

For the NAGRAT President, the explanation that the content slipped through existing systems is not convincing.

“So those who put it in the manual must be a group of people who do not want the Ghana we have,” he said.

“Or they are bent on destroying the cultural identity of this country, and therefore they want Ghanaians to be extinct from the human race.”

Mr Anaba said teachers first detected the content this year and raised concerns promptly.

“This was discovered this year, and teachers raised issues about it,” he said. “It came to our attention, and we wrote to NaCCA indicating our displeasure about what we have found in the manual.”

He explained that the nature of the subject delayed detection.

“You see, PE is a subject that is not broad,” he said. “The number of teachers in the school is one or two. So it becomes difficult for us to easily discover it.”

Once the issue was formally reported, he said action followed.

“But when it was discovered, we were informed, and we indicated that to NaCCA,” he said. “As we speak, they have asked that the books should be withdrawn from the schools.”

Host of the programme, Evans Mensah, asked whether NaCCA responded when NAGRAT first alerted them.

“The response was that they were correcting them,” Mr Anaba said. “So they were making sure that those definitions would be exchanged from the manual.”

Pressed on whether NaCCA explained how the content found its way into the document, Mr Anaba returned to the events of 2017.

“Considering that this happened in 2017, there was a backlash, and we were promised it wouldn’t happen again,” he said. “And they have somehow sneaked into the manual.”

He referenced comments by the NaCCA Director General that he inherited the process.

“Just like the Director-General explained, he said he came and met it,” Mr Anaba said. “They had already started preparing the manual. So he came and met it. He did not start with him.”

For NAGRAT, that explanation was still not acceptable.

“And we said that cannot hold,” he added, “therefore wanted it expunged from the manual.”