Regional News of Saturday, 4 May 2019

Source: Daniel Kaku

GNACOPS holds stakeholders training on new education curriculum

Some members at the workshop Some members at the workshop

The leadership of Ghana National Council of Private Schools (GNACOPS) has organised a day’s training for Proprietors, Managers, and teachers of Private Schools in the Ashanti Region.

The training focused on equipping stakeholders of education with adequate information and understanding on the current academic reformation vis-a-vis the introduction of a new curriculum by the Ministry of Education.

The stakeholders training which had the approval of the Education Ministry again sought to prepare participants to adapt and deliver in conformity with the new system.

As announced by the Ministry, the new curriculum will replace the current one from Kindergarten to Primary six.

Under this new system, subjects to be taught at the KG level have been reduced from seven to four and have been integrated into themes.

The themes for KG are Numecracy, Literacy, Creative Arts and Our World, Our People (citizenship).

There is, however, no change in the number of subjects at the primary level.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with GhanaWeb on the sidelines during the training, Director for GNACOPS, Mr. Steve Revss underscored the new curriculum as far better than the previous since it is much practical and learner centered.

He described the old educational system as robot based and that students were made to learn by memorizing “chew and pour” which for him were not helping.

“The new curriculum is just like that of the colonial days where we had few subjects and much practicals”, he recalled.

He disclosed that the majority of teachers within the private sector have been trained and are prepared to flow with the new system come September 2019.

Dr. Mantey Jectey Nyarko who is a lecturer at the Faculty of Art- KNUST also in his statement applauded the Ministry for moving Ghana’s educational curriculum from a content-based to a standard type.

This he indicated will make Ghana part of the world learning process considering the reality that skills in learning are changing and that “if students are not trained to acquire those skills, they will become irrelevant in the world of jobs and learning”.

Dr. Mantey disclosed that the old curriculum has outlived its relevance and that training Ghanaian student with the old will put them completely out of the world of jobs and learning.