The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, Professor Kwasi Opoku Amankwa has assured that textbooks for the newly developed Standard Based Curriculum will be ready by the next academic year beginning January 2022.
According to him, the processes for procuring materials for the new curriculum had begun and would be ready for use by the beginning of the academic calendar.
The Standard Based Curriculum was developed for Kindergarten 1 to Primary 6, however, the textbook materials for its implementation were delayed.
Addressing Journalists in Accra on Thursday, Prof Opoku-Amankwa said the service anticipated this challenge and that was why Teachers' Resource Pack were prepared for teachers at all the levels.
"In anticipation of the delays, the Ministry of Education and the GES developed, trained and distributed Teachers' Resource Park for each grade level and subject for all 150,000 plus KG one to Primary six teachers.
"Procurement processes commenced. It is expected that books will be available for use next academic year," he emphasised.
Similarly, he said the implementation of Common Core Curriculum (CCC) which was developed for Junior High School (JHS) as a sequel to the SBC for primary would also commence from next academic year.
"The implementation has stalled because we couldn’t do the training of the teachers during the CoVID19 period" he explained.
"Training of teachers on the use of the curriculum could not be completed. The curriculum has therefore not been introduced into the school system," he said.
Prof Opoku-Amankwa explained that it was the plan of the service to ensure that all teachers were properly trained in the use of the CCC before its introduction.
Currently, he said the JHS was using the old curriculum and the textbooks for that were still available in the schools.
Touching on on teaching and learning, he said as part of the Free Senior High School (FSHS), the government had supplied each student with textbooks on all the core subjects as well as several copies of textbooks on the elective subject in all Senior High Schools.
He praised the four hundred and eleven (411) Ghanaian students who attained A1 after Ghana competed with her sister African countries in an exams recently.
"I want to state emphatically that our educational system is not losing its value. If it is, 411 out of 465 Ghanaian students would not attained A1 in an exams Ghana partook with some sister African countries"
The Director-General advised students and teachers to continue to adhere to the covid-19 protocols to avoid the spread of the virus.
He, however, debunked claims that there are cases of food shortages in various schools across the country.
Story by: Joshua Kwabena Smith