New school's curriculum to start in September 2019
Education is the key to success. There is so much to this statement that learners ought to bear in mind. Education should groom one to live a fulfilled life. In adherence to this mantra, the government of Ghana is doing everything within its capacity to ensure that the education curriculum exclusively helps students achieve this goal. That reason has forced it to come up with a new school's curriculum which has been scheduled for the 2019/2020 academic year.
Source: UGC
After carrying out research on the current education curriculum, it was concluded that it had deficiencies in some of the key areas. It was also concluded that it is not objective-based, instead, it is an overload to the students. To tackle the areas that seemed inefficient, the ministry of education came up with a resolve to devise a new school's curriculum that would fix the deficiencies in the current one. The expected results will evaluate whether or not it would have served its purpose.
New Ghana education curriculum
The minister of education, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh made remarks on the new curriculum for basic schools during the meet-the-press series that was held recently. In his speech, he stated that the current curriculum had put more focus on ensuring that scholars passed exams instead of putting more effort into the long term development goals of the country. According to the minister, the current curriculum was slowly losing its value as the scholars were not competent in the job market.
READ ALSO: Ghana Education Service recruitment: Latest news
He vouched for the new curriculum for basic schools saying that it was different as it was devoted towards ensuring that scholars acquired arithmetic, reading, writing and creative skills which would be beneficial in solving critical problems. He went further to state that Mathematics was one of the key areas of interest stating that more emphasis would be put on the subject.
Features of the new curriculum
Source: UGC
While giving oversight of how the new curriculum would be, he stated that it would reintroduce the foundational and lifelong skills by reintroducing the history of Ghana, sports and physical education in a bid to attain a balance in the quality of education. These skills would also be beneficial in building the main critical competences. To add to it, it would also put emphasis on scholars learning French and the use of Information and Computing Technology as a teaching tool. Another focus is reintroducing the idea of equality and inclusion.
The journey towards the implementation of the new curriculum has been on since April. The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) has joined efforts with Ghana Education Service to come up with a schedule that will guide the process of putting the plan into practice.
Progress of the implementation process
The minister went further to state that the government and the ministry meant its word when it said that the new curriculum would be put into use. As part of the process, it had established 186 trainers whom NaCCA had trained between May and April. In June, it had also trained another 3900 trainers. The 186 would serve as master trainers, whereas the 3900 would serve as trainers for the district and regional levels.
According to the ministry of education, training of teachers is ongoing and is expected to be finalised in August. The new curriculum is scheduled to be put into practice as from September 2019.
The minister went forward to state that the government's move to ensure that every scholar is able to access secondary education was still on. He went further to state that the Free Senior High School (FSS) Education was put in place to ensure that no child was left behind.
In conformity with the new curriculum, Free Senior High School (FSS) Education was promoting equity which would in turn influence expansion of infrastructure as well as help in the development of quality skills. To ensure that this move was met with ease, the government of Ghana had created an extra 43% chance of enrollment. To back up these claims, he stated:
“We projected to increase the Senior High School (SHS) enrolment from 881,600 in 2016 to 1,264,190 by close of 2019".
The double-track system
Source: UGC
With regard to the double-track system for Senior High School, the minister affirmed that the government had stated that it would require up to seven years for it to halt the system. According to the minister, the government required some more time to ensure that it had adequate infrastructure to facilitate the Free Senior High School (FSS) Education programme. According to the figures that the minister gave, the government so far had 395 SHS even though it required at least 700 SHS for it to transit to the single-track system.
The minister made these remarks during an event that was geared towards launching Ghana Tertiary Education Policy whose focus is to set regulations and give clear guidelines on the structure of the tertiary education system. All these changes in the education system are geared towards ensuring that Ghana has a learned society that can respond effectively to a knowledge-driven economy.
Through the ministry of education the government of Ghana is making changes in the country's education system. These changes are expected to positively impact the nation as they aim at bringing up citizens who are knowledgeable and can respond critically to matters affecting the country. The new school's curriculum also aims at building the scholar's skills, a move that will address issues like unemployment. Citizens are being urged to support it.
READ ALSO:
- Distance education graduate teachers to still teach at SHS level– Education Ministry
- Main causes of unemployment in Ghana
- Distance education graduate teachers to still teach at SHS level– Education Ministry
- WASSCE 2019: Over 26,000 results withheld
Source: YEN.com.gh
