The government has announced plans to scale up the National Standardised Test (NST) nationwide as part of efforts to generate credible data on foundational learning and improving learning outcomes at the basic school level.
The expanded assessment, according to the government would provide valuable evidence to guide policy decisions and interventions aimed at strengthening literacy and numeracy among learners.
Speaking to the media yesterday after touring two centres where this year’s NST is taking place in Accra, the Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu said as part of the revised assessment framework, the same cohort of pupils would be tracked from Primary Two through to Primary Six, instead of assessing different groups of learners during each testing cycle.
He explained that the approach would enable the Ministry of Education to measure the academic progress of the same learners over time before they sit the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
Mr Iddrisu said this year’s exercise would cover 2,500 Kindergarten Two learners, 4,500 learners in Primary Two, 4,500 in Primary Four and 4,500 in Primary Six.
He noted that subsequent assessments would follow the Primary Two cohort into Primary Four and Primary Six to determine the impact of interventions introduced at the basic level.
The minister said observations from the assessment had revealed gaps in pupils’ understanding of some aspects of history.
While many learners correctly identified Dr Kwame Nkrumah as Ghana’s first President, he said some struggled to state the year Ghana attained independence, underscoring the need to strengthen the teaching of history in schools.
According to Mr Iddrisu, the new cohort-based assessment would shift the focus from comparing the performance of different groups of learners each year to measuring how much the same learners had improved over time.
He said the exercise formed part of the Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP), stressing that the data generated would inform evidence-based decision-making and reforms in the education sector.
Mr Iddrisu emphasised that Ghana must realign its priorities and increase investment in foundational learning, noting that strong literacy skills remained essential to learners’ academic success throughout the education ladder.
BY CLIFF EKUFUL
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