Highlights on Curriculum Reforms at the GES Press conference
According to the Director General of the GES, the Curriculum Reforms are aimed towards making a Shift from an objectives-based to a standards-based curriculum.
This shift will among other things strengthen the acquisition of the 4Rs (Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic and cReativity) as foundational skills for lifelong learning and national development.
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The revised curriculum has officially been launched and made public to afford publishers the opportunity to start developing appropriate textbooks. All TLMs meant for the classroom have to be officially assessed, approved and recommended by NaCCA based on the provisions of Act 778.
Implementation of the approved basic curriculum (KG1 – P6) will commence this September (2019/20 academic year) GES and NaCCA developed training materials (training guides and teacher resource pack).
Sample Structured Lessons; Sample Worksheet; Sample Yearly Overview; Sample Termly Scheme of Work; and Sample Weekly Lesson Plan are available.
Training of teachers and implementers has received support from partners including Cambridge International to focus on core competencies (essential skills) and assessment for learning.
The on-going National Training is being carried out with the assistance of 36 National Simulators, 86 Master Trainers trained in May 2019, 3900 Regional and District, Trainers trained in June 2019 and a total of 152,000 KG1 to Primary 6 teachers who are undergoing training at 996 Cluster Centres across all Districts and Regions.
To ensure the needed training materials are readily available to all teachers, resource packs for all teachers have been supplied along with training materials.
These include set of Curriculum for every school (KG and Primary), set of Curriculum for every District and Regional Education Office.
The Director general also revealed that GHS26 million cedis has also been disbursed for training purposes scheduled as follows
Week 1: Tuesday August 13 to Saturday August 17, 2019.
Week 2: Monday August 19 to Friday August 23, 2019 .
Week 3: Monday August 26 to Friday August 30, 2019 which will be the mop up week should there be a need for additional training at any of the clusters.
Continuous Professional Development
He also added that, there will be Continuous Professional Development opportunity for teachers thus Professional Learning Communities (PLCs)- One hour of every Wednesday will be dedicated to the PLCs at the school, cluster or circuit level. This will ensure that when students close and go home, teachers will have a training for an hour to upgrade themselves.
Professional Development Days (PDDs)
The Ghana Education Service will also once every quarter (4 times a year) organize a PDDs. During these sessions, students will not attend school, however, teachers will have a full training day to develop themselves and abreast themselves on best practices and new pedagogical skills.