General News of Monday, 7 June 2021

Source: 3news.com

What is standardized test without text books for pupils? – Kofi Asare questions

Educationist, Kofi Asare Educationist, Kofi Asare

Two years of implementing Ghana’s new curriculum without providing textbooks for basic schools is bound to impact negatively on the performance of pupils.

Much more is the standardized test for primary four pupils government intends to roll.

An Educationist, Kofi Asare, has challenged the Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Adutwum to see to it that the standardized test for pupils in primary four is implemented properly and not suffer a similar fate of previous programmes.

Standardized test is usually conducted to assess the proficiency levels of students in Mathematics and English and the government has hinted of plans to undertake such tests.

According to Kofi Asare, who is also the Executive Director of the Africa Education Watch, what the government intends to do is nothing new and that the standardized test has been around for a decade now but because of poor implementation they die prematurely.

“In implementing the new curriculum you have not provided the necessary building block for teachers to teach so if you go and write this test what will you be expecting to see. You will end up with the same average of 15% proficiency in Mathematics and English”.

“And you will ask yourself why is it so? So we will say oh it’s because of lack of textbooks and when it gets to resolving those issues then the same systemic issue will set in, that is why I say it is nothing new,” he told Host of the Sunrise Morning Show on 3FM 92.7.