GES trains stakeholders on new curriculum
Stakeholders in Education are being given an intensive training on the new Standard-Based Curriculum for basic schools to be rolled out in the next academic year; September 2019.
Participants at the five-day master trainers’ workshop, which opened in Koforidua on Monday, were selected from the Ghana Education Service (GES), National Council for Curriculum Assessment (NaCCA), National Inspectorate Board, National Teaching Council, Public Colleges of Education and the Universities, among others.
To ensure that teachers, the gatekeepers to the effective implementation of the new curriculum, are well exposed, the participants would, in turn, do the regional and district training for more than 152,000 basic school teachers in the country, scheduled to take place between June-July 2019.
Dr Mathew Opoku-Prempeh, the Minister of Education, said over the years the content and structure of instruction in the institutions of learning, particularly at the basic level, had failed to adequately equip young people with the skills and innovation needed for nation-building.
He said Ghana’s educational system had merely served as a conveyor belt to pass students into the world of work without ensuring that they were able to function effectively.
One of the critical ways to addressing that was the change in curriculum at the basic level, he said.
Dr Opoku-Prempeh said the formative periods from the kindergarten to primary three were very critical on the educational ladder.
“When we get Kg – P3 right, which is the foundation of education, all the others would be right, hence the need to change the curriculum at the basic level as the first step to tackle the needed change in the educational sector”.
The Minister commended the leadership of the NaCCA for the dedication to the all-important national assignment and expressed confidence that the curriculum they had produced, along with modifications to the national system of assessment, would be the answer to the needs of modern education.
That, he said, would equip young Ghanaians to compete favourably with others anywhere in the world.
Professor Kwasi Opoku Amankwaa, the Director-General of the GES, said the Government was fully sponsoring the training of the 152,000 basic school teachers and all other resources needed in the implantation of the new curriculum to the tune of GH₵26 million
He, therefore, directed that no teacher must pay any money towards the training programme.
Dr Prince Hamid Armah, the Executive Secretary of the NaCCA, said the training had been designed with full recognition of the exigencies of the time as well as the non-negotiable global imperative of quality education as required by the Sustainable Development Goal-Four.
He expressed the hope that every teacher at the basic level would be trained before the 2019/20 academic year and urged stakeholders to be committed to ensure the success of the programme.
Source: GNA