Teachers begin training on new curriculum

One hundred and fifty teachers have begun receiving training on the new curriculum for basic schools which is expected to be implemented in September this year.

The Ghana Education Service (GES), in collaboration with the National Council for Curriculum and Assesment (NaCCA), is organising the five-day programme which is part of a series of training workshops for teachers on the standard-based curriculum.

The participants (master trainers), drawn from the GES, the NaCCA and other sectors, will in turn train all 152,000 basic school teachers in the country before the curriculum is rolled out for the 2019/2020 academic year.

Launch

The Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, who launched the programme in Koforidua in the Eastern Region yesterday, said the new curriculum that placed the child at the centre of teaching and learning also emphasised the primacy of instructors.

He explained that the training workshop “will feed into a system of continuous professional development that will keep our teachers fully abreast at every stage on the demands of the new curriculum and any changes in professional needs that arise.”

“We are firm in our determination that every one of the 152,000 basic school teachers will be given the necessary training and tools needed to make this exercise a rousing success,” the minister added.

Concerns

Dr Opoku Prempeh was, however, not happy that some people were discrediting the new curriculum on social media with comments aimed at promoting sectarianism and divisiveness.

On the use of local languages in the new curriculum, he said it would benefit the country as some people felt others’ languages had been imposed on them.

“More languages have been added and their educational materials developed. It is very important to see this project as ours, and not as a political tool since it is for the future of our country,” the minister said

According to Dr Opoku Prempeh, human resource was the vital element necessary for national development.

He urged teachers to adopt simple methods of teaching to the understanding of their pupils, especially, Mathematics which most pupils considered a difficult subject.

Commitment

The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, Prof. Akwasi Opoku Amankwa, said the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GET Fund) had honoured the GES’s request of GH¢ 26 million for the training of all 152,000 classroom teachers.

Prof. Opoku Amankwa said the GES would continue to identify and determine what new knowledge was required for teachers to ensure the effective implementation of the curriculum, adding “we will depart from the current system where teachers go to pursue academic programmes, some of which are completely irrelevant to the profession.”

For his part, the Executive Secretary of NaCCA, Dr Prince Hamid Armah, also said every effort would be made to ensure the success of the programme.