The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) mandated by the Educational Regulatory Bodies Act, 2020 (Act 1023) to develop national curriculum and assessment standards for the Senior High School, Senior High Technical Schools and Science, Technology, Environment and Mathematics (STEM) schools engaged officers from the Information Services Department across the length and breadth of the country via workshop conducted for three days.
The three days’ workshop conducted for the Southern Sector, Middle sector and Northern sector seeks to address the strategic ways of dissemination effectively on the approved newly curriculum thoroughly drafted by NaCCA and it allies from the Educational Sector from all angles including other collaborators such as the Parliamentary Selected Committee of Education, the National Unions for Ghana Student (NUGS), Civil Society Organization (CSOs) in Education, Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), Association of Ghana Industry (AGI), and Subjected Associations using the Education Strategic Plan (ESP, 2018-2030) which served as a guide in the writeup of the newly curriculum.
Atiwa East District Assembly was privileged to be part of the Southern belt NaCCA workshop which was conducted at Airport View Hotel in Accra represented by the Assistant Information Officer / Right to Information officer in the person of Prince Obeng Donkor for the District Information Officer in the person of Frederick Kofi Asempa.
According to the Director for Corporate Affairs for NaCCA in the person of Rebecca Abu Gariba, in her presentation to the house strongly believe that the New Curriculum aims to specifically target learners in the various schools and equip them with the 21st century skills, competencies, character qualities and shared Ghanaian values. The new curriculum which is of the first kind ever drafted to suit the setting of Ghanaians values for pre-tertiary schools and about to implemented is now here to address the weakness of the old pre-tertiary school syllabus used by teachers for student learning.
She went ahead to exploit the weakness of the old syllabus of which one of it was the extreme poor standardization of the service delivery of the true knowledge required by the students to practically utilize in locally and globally. For this is as a result of the inconsistency on the side of most teachers not truly understanding what the content of the syllabus is selling out and not to talk of teaching it to the students or teaching it without the full understanding just to cover up for the losses. For the old syllabus lacks the how and when the teacher is supposed to do to aid the student in leaning, and all burden falls on the shoulders of the teachers to make it possible.
The other setbacks highlighted by Miss Rebecca Abu on the weakness of the old syllable is the old syllabus not student centered but teacher centered to the extent that, students are not involved in the knowledge-creation process. Teachers need to be the knowledge-creator in addition to the facilitation. To cement what was said by Miss Rebecca to the house, the old syllabus does not address the emotional and social challenges and its mitigation to manage, build a healthy relationship and make a responsive decision.
However, on the basis of the conducted research outcomes from NaCCA on the old syllabus and several recommendations made from several educational bodies across the country to NaCCA decided to draft a comprehensive and thoroughly new curriculum framework for pre-tertiary schools across Ghana in collaboration with GES, and other stakeholders especially, Transforming Teaching Education Learning (T-TEL) a non-for-profit Ghanaian organization that provides high quality technical advice, project management, research and implementation support services, using local talent and expertise to enable Ghana’s education system to reach greater heights.
According to Miss Rebecca, the writeup of the newly pre-tertiary school curriculum was collectively guided by the Education Strategic Plan (ESP, 2018-2030) which comprises of the development of the National Pre-Tertiary Education Curriculum Framework and the National Pre-Tertiary Leaning Assessment Framework. The strategic oversight and guidance to the curriculum development process were the Ministry of Education Agencies, the Universities, Teacher Union, Employers and other key stakeholders formed from the year 2022. The documents had undergone a thoroughly trailing and learning approaches in 33 schools nationwide in the year 2023/2024 academic year at category A, B and C pre-tertiary schools to ensure the fitness of it and its true purpose as intended. Before the new curriculum acceptance and approval, it had gone for review by the international and national experts including various durbars and townhall meetings as a necessary systematic step to ensure it authenticity, and the meeting of the global quality standards.
The new curriculum intended to be rollout in November 2024 starting with the new entrance students in all the various senior high schools, senior high technical schools, and STEM schools is here to target all students and solicit their fundamental level of skills in creativity, arithmetic, scientific, information and communication, digitalization, civic, and global citizenship. The other service delivery of the curriculum is the competencies in critical thinking and problem-solving, innovation and creativity, collaboration and communication. In addition to what is stated above is the enforcement of Ghanaian character qualities which includes integrity, self-discipline, self-directed learning, self-confidence, adaptability and resourcefulness, leadership and responsible citizenship.
The Curriculum expert Prof. Jonathan Fletcher added more flesh to Miss Rebecca’s presentation by making emphasis on the philosophy vision of each subject which set out why the subject is being taught and how it will contribute to national development. It also aims to achieve every learner full potential under the guidance and supervision of the teachers, and the guardian and council members, and to provide the right environment and other resources for learning.
According to Prof Fletcher, the new curriculum has been capacitated to identify, and expose the activist, reflectors, theorist, and the pragmatic learner’s behavior and their responds to the effect of the curriculum. With this statement made by the Professor, teachers can easily identify and exploit the learner’s weakness and address them separately or depending on the situation at hand fall upon the services of the guidance and council members to mitigate the issue and put the learner on track.
The new curriculum does not leave the people with disabilities (PWDs) unattended the curriculum export said. PWDs can now effectively adapt the teaching and learning materials into accessible format through technology and other measures to meet the needs of the learners. The incorporation of the new strategic and measures which are the differentiation and the adaptive pedagogies, ensures the equitable access to resources and opportunities for all learners. It also challenges the traditional gender, cultural, or stereotypes and encouraging all learners to achieve their true potential, and finally, making provision for the needs of gifted talented learners in their respective schools.
According to one of Professor Fletchers research conducted on Africans students in-conjunction with the ideology of the old syllabus reveals the exclusion of the learners social and emotional affairs, but however, the new curriculum does addresses the affairs of both social and emotional to help learners to develop and acquire skills, attitudes and knowledge essential for understanding and managing their emotional, and to build healthy relationship and making responsible decision.
The very new unique key features the new curriculum unveils for the leaners in the STEM, SHS, and SHTS schools is the flexibility in subject selection. Learners are privileged to choose subjects between a minimum total of 7 (comprises of 4 core and 3 elective) and maximum of 9 (comprises of 4 core and 5 electives). Some of these subjects can be selected for year one instead of the full three years. BECE will continue to be the exit examination for Junior High School (JHS) leavers. JHS graduate entering the Senior High School will choose general “learning areas” such as the General Arts, Science, Languages, STEM, Applied Technology, Home Economics, Business Studies, Arts. Once leaners are placed in school using the School Placement System (SPS), learners will have much more freedom than is currently the case to combine different subjects around their chosen learning area. This will provide leaners with flexibility options to pursue different career pathway at the tertiary level.
In addition to Prof. Fletcher address, Professor Yayra Dzakadzie Director General for NaCCA also made emphasis on the subject combination enrolled by the new curriculum and pin-pointed out the required four (4) core subjects which are Social Studies, English language, Mathematics, Genera Science but Physical Education and Health (PEH) core depends on their choice of elective subjects. For Robotics and Coding, is mandatory for all year two 2 learners. The choice of the elective subjects in addition to the core subjects by learners grants them permission to divert to other career pathway at the tertiary level incorporating flexibility to the new curriculum. The surprise integration of intervention subjects which are the interventional English and Mathematics curricula have been deployed to assist learners who required additional support literacy and numeracy as an alternative and efficient way of mitigating the negative effect of the old syllabus. Schools would conduct an initial assessment to identify newly admitted learners’ weakness for appropriate support using the new curriculum.
Professor Eric Anane another NaCCA expert in Assessment also chipped-in into the conversation highlighting the conduct of the new curriculum assessment. The Expert said, the new curriculum assessment will be in two levels which are the formative assessment and the summative assessment. The Formative Assessment will comprise of the portfolio, performance and project(s) work, and end-of-term examinations accounting for 30% of the overall summative assessment. For the Summative Assessment will comprise of the West African Examination Council (WAEC) via the WASSCE accounting for 70% of the overall summative assessment. The questions posed by WAEC will test critical thinking, communication and problem-solving as well as the knowledge, understanding and factual recall. However, the curriculum will reveal the true far greater transparency and quality assurance of the 30% marks allocation to the overall summative assessment which is school-based. This will be achieved via the introduction of school-based transcript, setting out all marks which learners achieve from SHS 1 to SHS 3. The transcript will be presented to universities alongside the WASSE certificate for tertiary admissions.
Miss Mabel Viviey from NaCCA open the house to the new curriculums’ teaching and learning resources which was under the guidance of the Ministry of Education, Ghana Education Service, and WAEC. She said, learning materials for the effective implementation of the new curriculum have been completed and approved by NaCCA for Year One for all 37 subjects and available on the zero-based Microsite, T-TEL official website. Teachers and learners can access the microsite free of charge without using their internet data. In addition to these learning materials, a Professional Learning Community (PLC) Handbooks, Subject-Specific teacher manuals, the Departmental Professional Learning Community Handbook, and a Teacher Assessment Guide and toolkits are being made available to teachers in all the 705 SHSs and SHTSs since June 2023 for effective implementation of the program.
The PLC handbooks are designed to support teachers in organizing weekly sessions for learners, Subject-Specific Teachers Manuals spells out the content, pedagogies and assessment information needed by teachers to plan and deliver effectively each week, and the Departmental professional Community (DPLCs) allows teachers within the same department meet and to discuss their pedagogical experiences and plan lesson for the next semester. To enhance teaching, weekly Learning Plans will now incorporate Learner Materials and Transcript Assessment Guidance, alongside Teacher Manuals, which ensure teachers utilize all resources available. The benefit of the incorporation he added, was to put teachers on-track during the implementation to the targeted focus of the new curriculum which are the 21st century skills and competencies, gender equity and social inclusion (GESI), social and emotional learning (SEL), and the shared Ghanaian values.