Lesson notes and The Hypocrisy of GES is a thought-provoking piece every teacher must read as we find answers to the thinking behind the continuous call for handwritten lesson notes.
Reasons why GES officials reject downloaded and printed lesson notes
a. The major reason why GES officials reject downloaded and printed lesson notes from the internet is that;
b. It is written by another teacher in a different geographical area where the characteristics of the learners are different.
Lesson notes and the Hypocrisy of GES
Because of the above reasons, the GES expects every teacher to write a unique lesson note that meets the needs of learners in his class. Fantastic.
Hypocrisy number one about the lesson notes
When a teacher downloads the already prepared notes from the internet and uses the pen to copy ditto ditto into the lesson notebook provided, it is accepted without any comments.
Does copying it with a pen make the note unique or make it meet the learning needs of the learners? The answer is a no.
Hypocrisy number two about the lesson notes
GES has introduced a Policy in some selected basic schools called GALOP (Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcome Project). It is basically an intervention program for “non-performing” schools to bridge the gap.
Here’s the thing,
Before the introduction of the New Curriculum, With support from USAID, 100 districts across the country were implementing a Reading Program at the KG and lower primary called the Learning Program.
This program came with a resource pack for teachers, teacher’s guide/lesson notes, workbooks, textbooks, and supplementary books for children’s practice at home.
Within the three years of piloting, we all saw results. The children were reading to our admiration. The children, teachers, and parents like the program and wish it was extended but GES threw it away and brought in the Standards-Based Curriculum.
Currently, they are passing the bushway to reintroduce it to schools that were not selected for the GALOP initiative.
Interestingly, because of this reintroduction, teachers in these classes (1-3) were asked not to write lesson notes for English and Ghanaian Language. Why? because somebody from the USA has already written the notes for them and it’s going to be used by teachers in every part of the country.
Meanwhile, GES officials want to make us believe that, one teacher in the North cannot write notes for another in the South to implement.
If this is not hypocrisy, what else is? Truth is, GES just wants to see teachers suffering for nothing. That’s all. How can you be preaching standardization and individual discretion at the same time? How can you standardize the curriculum and leave the lesson notes out?
If a scripted lesson note is doing magic in the learning program, why can’t it do the same for the Standard Based Curriculum?
Hypocrisy number three about the lesson notes
The newly introduced Standards-Based Curriculum and its attendant Lesson notes are designed with three terms in mind and not semester.
When you look criticality at how the Strands and Sub-strands are to be distributed especially for some selected subjects, NaCCA has to seriously go back to the drawing board, redesign, come back and retrain teachers on how to implement them if we are really serious about achieving the Standards.
They are there looking on, extending the length of the school day as if all is well while teachers are in the classroom racking their brains amidst frustration. They will soon come around to intimidate teachers for not writing lesson notes.
Source: Hon Jerry Akporhor
The Ghana Education News Editorial Team is a specialized collective of education researchers, journalists, and policy analysts dedicated to providing high-fidelity reporting on the Ghanaian academic landscape. Serving as a primary bridge between governing bodies—including the Ghana Education Service (GES) and WAEC—and the public, the team leverages over a decade of combined experience to serve students, parents, and educators nationwide.
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The team is led by Wisdom Kojo Eli Hammond, a distinguished Ghanaian Edu-Tech Entrepreneur, AI Solutions Developer, and Product Architect with over 25 years of cross-disciplinary experience in education, finance, and digital media. Wisdom is the visionary force behind SkulManager, Ghana’s premier school management ecosystem, and the Lead Consultant at Education-News Consult.
A self-taught innovator, professional Web Designer, and regular columnist on GhanaWeb, Wisdom engineered SkulManager.com as the only platform strictly tailored to the GES Curriculum. His technical leadership has redefined educational assessment through a Hybrid Marking Ecosystem, pioneering the BECE and WASSCE Home Mock services—a unique fusion of WAEC-trained human examiners and advanced AI marking engines operational since 2022.
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