The new curriculum for secondary education in Ghana is inclusive, learner centred and designed to inculcate Ghanaian values, culture, and morals in young people to propel accelerated and sustainable development.
Mr Reginald George Quartey, Acting Director for Curriculum at the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA), said this at Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region during a stakeholder engagement on the newly developed secondary education curriculum.
According to Mr Quartey, the new curriculum was flexible and making a paradigm shift from the study of programmes to the selection of subjects, which offered the students multiple pathways to tertiary education and life in general.
‘Now, it doesn’t matter the programmes you are aspiring to offer, you have to select subjects and combine them to have a flexible pathway to the university,’ he said.
NaCCA has initiated discussions around the development of a three-year Senior High School (SHS) and Senior High Technical School (SHTS) curriculum in l
ine with the National Pre-Tertiary Education Curriculum Framework and the National Teachers Standards.
The move had led to the development of 37 subjects for the secondary education while teaching and learning were being developed to ensure the curriculum is rolled out in the 2024/2025 academic year.
The move is part of the reforms being embarked upon by the Ministry of Education to ensure that all secondary school graduates had the skill and competence to progress and succeed in further studies, the world of work and adult life.
Mr Quartey said the comprehensive curriculum aimed to address socio-emotional differences and appreciation of people by instilling discipline, national values, and morals in the learners.
‘There is so much talk about how our values are fading away or being eroded so this curriculum is seeking to push that forward so that learners develop very good behavioural traits and ensure that school and community curricula, which seemed divergent, converge,’ he said.
The Acting Director of
Curriculum said apart from the fact that the new curriculum was learner centred and offered more practical learning opportunities, it was inclusive and had taken serious consideration of persons with disability.
He said ‘currently, NaCCA is developing sign language curriculum for the deaf and the curriculum is also being adapted for the blind students,’ adding that the mathematics curriculum already underway was being adapted for the blind, who currently do not study mathematics at the SHS level.
He called on the stakeholders, particularly parents and actors in the education sector to support the move to ensure that students produced were equipped with the necessary problem-solving skills to contribute significantly to national development.
‘This curriculum seeks to develop students to think about their neighbours, community, this country and the world at large,’ he added.
Professor Avea Nsoh, a Lecturer at the University of Education, Winneba, commended NaCCA and its partners for the new curriculum and i
ts components and added that it would not only offer different pathways to success but when well implemented, would produce nationalistic and patriotic citizens for the development of the country.
He, however, called for more engagements to ensure that the relevant stakeholders appreciated the content of the new curriculum and supported it to achieve the intended objectives.
Mr Simon Asigri, a Retured Educationist, noted that it was refreshing that the curriculum took into consideration the culture, values and morals of the Ghanaian setting and appealed for the teaching and learning materials to be made available when it is rolled out in October.
Source: Ghana News Agency