A Senior Research Officer at the Ministry of Education, Isaac Asamoah Boadi, has said despite years of investment in curriculum reform, teacher training and school improvement, Ghana continues to face persistent gaps in literacy and numeracy.
He said as a result, the ministry was working to strengthen a culture of evidence-informed decision-making through the Ghana Education Evidence and Data Lab (GEEDLab) with the aim of ensuring that research generated in Ghana did not remain on university shelves but reached stakeholders and informed policy and practice.
Mr Boadi was addressing researchers at the Legon Centre for Education Research and Policy (LECERP) at the University of Ghana.
The Joint Research Dissemination Forum shared research evidence by the awardees of the Foundational Learning project funded by Education Sub Saharan Africa (ESSA) and the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre.
The forum brought together researchers, policymakers, education practitioners and other stakeholders from institutions including the Ministry of Education, Ghana Education Service, public and private universities and special education units.
Mr Boadi said the situation made it important for stakeholders to continually asked what the evidence revealed about the challenges and what could be done differently.
The studies presented focused on critical issues affecting foundational learning, including language and multilingualism, early-grade reading, dyslexia and inclusive education, and the design and implementation of Ghana’s Standards-Based Curriculum.
Presentations
The forum featured a presentation by Dr. Davis Mawuena Aweso (Principal researcher) and his collaborators from the University of Education, Winneba, on the project titled “From Home to School: Assessing the alignment between community language practices and standards-based curriculum implementation for early grade learners in multilingual Ghana.”
The qualitative multiple-case study, conducted across three early-grade centres, examined how children’s home and community language practices interacted with classroom instruction in multilingual settings.
The study revealed that children’s readiness to engage with classroom instruction was influenced more by the dominant language used within their communities than by the officially designated language prescribed under education policy.
It also found that teachers’ language choices varied depending on their preparation and the classroom context.
It said while parents generally expressed a strong preference for english, largely because of its perceived importance for academic success, the study highlighted the complexities involved in defining and implementing the concept of a “local language” in linguistically diverse communities.
The researchers recommended language-responsive teacher deployment, strengthened curriculum guidance that recognised existing multilingual practices such as trans-languaging and peer language brokering, and a more context-specific approach to defining “local language” that reflected the linguistic realities of individual communities.
In another presentation by Dr. Roger Abogzuah Ayinselya and his collaborators from the University of Cape Coast on “Home-school language alignment, multilingualism and reading skills among Primary 3 children in Ghana.”
The study involved approximately 400 pupils and 20 teachers from rural and urban schools and explored how language experiences at home and school relate to children’s reading performance in english and local languages.
Home–school language alignment and household multilingualism showed no significant associations with reading in either language, regardless of municipality.
Teacher–child language alignment was also unrelated to reading outcomes.
Teachers attributed children’s low reading performance to several factors, including english/local-language material shortages; insufficient trained local language teachers; and pupils' reluctance to seek help from teachers and younger classmates.
The study, therefore, called for interventions that went beyond language policy to address teacher preparation, home literacy support and school-level conditions that influenced early literacy development.
