The President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) says the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) knew about the controversial "gender identity" content in a Senior High School teacher manual long before public outrage forced its withdrawal.

Jacob Anaba told Joy News’ PM Express on Wednesday that the issue was not new and should never have appeared in any teaching material, given the earlier national backlash over similar content.

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

He said that the reappearance of the issue was deeply troubling.

“So one will be very surprised that if you lived in Ghana at that time, you would 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.”

NaCCA recently withdrew printed copies of the Year Two Physical Education and Health (Elective) Teacher Manual after admitting that sections on “gender identity” did not align with Ghanaian culture, norms and values.

The manual was developed in 2024 to support teachers implementing the new SHS curriculum introduced last academic year.

It had already been approved, printed with public funds and distributed nationwide before concerns were raised. A revised version has since been released, which NaCCA says reflects national values and a biological understanding of gender.

Mr Anaba suggested the inclusion of the content could not have been accidental.

“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.”

He said teachers were the first to flag the problem when they eventually discovered it.

“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 made early detection difficult.

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

According to him, once NaCCA was alerted, the association expected swift corrective action.

“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 Evans Mensah pressed Mr Anaba on NaCCA’s response after NAGRAT formally wrote to the council.

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

When asked whether NaCCA explained how the content found its way into the manual, Mr Anaba linked it to earlier processes.

“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 on the same programme.

“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.”

NAGRAT, however, rejected that explanation.

“We said that we cannot hold,” he said, adding that the association insisted the content be removed entirely from the manual.