A 21st-century education is about giving students the skills they need to succeed in this new world, and helping them grow the confidence to practise those skills. This requires a curriculum that emphasises team-based projects in which groups draw on each individual’s strengths to solve problems.
In a quest to reform the current teaching and learning process in second cycle institutions to meet this 21st century requirement, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) has reached the latter stages in the development of a new curriculum for Senior High Schools (SHS), Senior High Technical Schools (SHTS) and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programmes.
In the development of these curricula, the NaCCA broadly consulted all relevant stakeholders in the education sector in a process that spanned a three-year period, ensuring all the right boxes have been ticked.
Notably, over 300 Ghanaian professionals collaborated in its writing, ensuring alignment with national values and expectations. Departing from the traditional programme-based approach, the new curriculum focuses on course-based selection, offering students flexibility in subject choices.
Policy think-tanks and education sector civil society organisations (CSOs), including the Institute for Education Studies (IFEST), Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch), Campaign Against Privatisation and Commercialisation of Education (CAPCOE), while commending the NaCCA for a rigorous exercise that could transform talent development and shape the future of the nation, have shared concerns about the implementation process.
Based on past experiences with the implementation of new curricula such as the Standards-Based Curriculum (SBC) and Common Core Programme (CCP), the call by the CSOs is not far-fetched.
Executive Director, Institute for Education Studies (IFEST), Peter Anti Partey, who also happens to be a consultant on this new curriculum project, mentioned that the curriculum has been painstakingly developed to meet the needs of modern learning expectations. Nonetheless, if implementation goes wrong, the expected outcomes, goals and targets might become a mirage.
“This new curriculum is the best the country has developed in a long time. It holds great prospects for the future of the country. The right stakeholders have been engaged, the processes were followed to ensure creation of enabling environment for learners to unearth full potential and well equip trainers.
“But this is the paper work. If the implementation process is not well-grounded, it may derail all the hard work so far. The learning materials and required teacher manuals as well as textbooks must not delay like previous ones,” he said.
The Eduwatch, on the other hand, mentioned that training and resourcing teachers efficiently, providing textbooks and other learning materials right at the roll-out point, avoiding content overload, and ensuring effective monitoring and evaluation process are key concerns that when addressed within the implementation stage will influence the success rate.
Past experiences
It would be recalled that in September 2019, the government announced the roll-out of new curriculum for kindergarten to primary six, referred to as the Standards-Based Curriculum (SBC). The implementation of the SBC was faced with myriads of challenges, especially textbooks and other teaching and learning materials. In fact, it took three years of constant agitation and public outcry by CSOs for the resources to be provided.
Similarly, the introduction of the new Common Core Programme (CCP) Curriculum for Junior High School (JHS) (Basic 7 to Basic 9) and Senior High School (SHS Basic 10) in 2022 was very chaotic, with teachers having to share their challenges and stress for about two years.
Kindly click on this link to access previous publications on challenges to curriculum implementation: https://thebftonline.com/2022/01/19/big-problems-loom-for-education-sector-for-next-decade-csos-warn/
