The Institute for Education Studies (IFEST) has said pupil teachers risk becoming rusty in the implementation of the new curriculum rolled out for Kindergarten to Primary 6 pupils before schools were closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Acting Executive Director of IFEST, Peter Anti, said closing schools for a long period always presents serious challenges to teaching and learning.

“Ghana has a difficult challenge. We have a difficult challenge because barely seven months into the implementation of the new curriculum for KG to P6, we had to close down schools due to the COVID-19. This means that both teachers and students were still at the familiarisation stage of the implementation process.

“In fact, most teachers we have interacted with have indicated that they would need some sort of training to be able to continue the implementation process faithfully,” he told GhanaWeb on Monday, October 5, 2020.

As part efforts to reduce the excessive focus on the teaching of content and passing of exams instead of ensuring that children acquire lifelong skills, the government revised the curriculum for KG to Primary 6 students.

The new curriculum, according to government, is expected to ensure that pupils “can think more creatively and have both the confidence and competence to participate fully in the Ghanaian society as responsible local and global citizens.”

However, the implementation timelines for the curriculum was disrupted when schools were closed down due to the pandemic.



Commenting on the issue, IFEST said when primary schools reopen, students will be the hardest hit since it would require extra efforts from teachers to bring them back to where they left off.

“So understandably, stakeholders would focus more on students than any other group during school closures. This also explains the reason #IFEST advocated and supported the partial reopening of schools,” Mr Anti said.

In a bid to reduce the challenges that may arise in the implementation of the new curriculum, IFEST has introduced what it calls a Community of Practice (CoP) model.

IFEST explains that the CoP model has been developed to ensure that teachers continue to interact among themselves, to reflect on what has been done and refresh their memories while they wait for schools to reopen.

“In our model, we make a strong point that the teaching and learning process does not form a triadic relationship as propounded by some scholars, but rather a quadruple relationship - with the Teacher interacting with the Learner, Subject Matter and Colleague Teachers,” he explained.

He said IFEST is on a mission to push for engagement among teachers based on its CoP Model so that teachers can continue to work together to edify themselves even as schools remain closed.