NaCCA starts assessing newly proposed text books for basic schools

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) has begun a thorough assessments and scrutiny of the newly proposed text books for basic schools in the country.

According to the Council, plans are far advanced in the selection of text books that best conform to content and structure as stipulated in the guidelines of the newly introduced Standard Based Curriculum expected to commence today.

The Acting Director In charge of Curriculum and Resource Development of NaCCA, Alhaji Seidu Mahama disclosed this to Ghanaian Times in an interview in Accra yesterday.

He disclosed that various authors and publishers had submitted their text books to a panel of experts of NaCCA for their final inputs and approval.

Although, Alhaji Mahama failed to give an accurate date the experts would complete the assessment, he indicated that the Council was undergoing various stages of the curriculum and awaiting the approval of the panel.

The Acting Training Officer of NaCCA, Mr John Mensah Anang told the Ghanaian Times in a separate interview that, the Council had developed resource pack to the 152,000 trained kindergarten and primary school teachers who had undergone a week’s training during the vacation period.

He observed that the materials were enough for teachers to carry out their duties; hence, delay in the textbook printed out would not affect quality teaching and learning.

“Private schools teachers across the country also completed their training last week to ensure the smooth implementation of the introduction of the curriculum.

“The training programme was designed with full recognition of the exigency of modern times and the global imperative of quality education; the teachers’ resource pack contains areas in the curriculum framework and some areas of the text books which they can use.

“We decided to add an instructional resource to the curriculum, so that we do not allow teachers to go back to use the old materials, and that is why we developed what is called the Teacher Resource Pack, the document is enough for teachers to teach with, so they do not have to wait and allow the pupil become idle during lesson hours,” Mr Annang assured.

BY BERNARD BENGHAN