Teachers hit hard at GES’ after stop using the new curriculum is Fake Disclaimer.
A day after a publication by Ghanaweb and other news portals that the GES has given approval for teachers to use the old curriculum to teach students, the Ghana Education Service came out to indicate the said publication was fake. Reacting to that, the Coalition of Concerned Teachers which was the source of the latest news came out to apologize to the GES on statements one of its leaders made in an interview that led to the viral news.
However, teachers will not let this be swept under the carpet after the GES posted on its Facebook page that the news was fake.
Reacting to the GES publication, teachers have expressed their highest disappointment in the service for failing to effectively and efficiently roll out the new curriculum two years after it was introduced. They tagged the GES as incompetent and reactive in its response to key issues confronting Pre-tertiary education.
One of the commentators on the GES post said ” Currently in Ghana, the most useless and insensitive sector is GES. Not sensitive to the future of the innocent ones they have the responsibility of naturing. Almost three years after implementing the new curriculum, nothing is in the schools for teaching.”
Another said “Action speaks louder than voice and written words. For the negligent in the provision of the teaching and learning resources for the implementation of the new curriculum is a clear indication that GES is instructing teachers to return to the old syllabus.”
This is a clear indication of how genuinely teachers in Ghana are worried about the poorly introduced and implemented new curriculum. Since the Basic 7 curriculum was introduced, the GES is yet to train teachers on the new curriculum, this has turned the whole academic year into a try-and-error system with no training for teachers’ insight. Without the requisite books, teachers at the JHS are finding it difficult to teach JHS 1 learners.
For sure, once the needed training has not been offered JHS teachers, the best curriculum to use will be the old one.
Another reaction from a teacher on the GES post read ” Fake you said? Heard this from a GES Metro officer. Save us the pretense and start doing the right thing.”
The GES must officially make a statement on the issue and clear the doubts. Posting that the said publication is fake is not enough. Some teachers are of the view that, the news was not fake and that they [GES] intentionally do this to check the masses’ reaction. Once they see it’s not welcoming, they try to change direction.”
For two solid years after rolling out a new curriculum no textbooks have been provided to teachers and pupils but the government has raised enough money to procure past questions for SHS final year students. If the GES had provided teachers with textbooks, all these confusions here and there wouldn’t have occurred.
Teachers are knocking on the doors of the GES to wake up and react quickly before you collapse the education system.
The time to #FIXGES, the confused education service is now. Truth the told, It looks as though the Ghana Education Service is not well organized and it needs to fix itself. It may be doing its best but the best is not enough and problems keep cropping up every now and then.
The GES is a confused organization together with the ministry of education. Which curriculum is the JHS one using?
What happened to the Assessment test for b2, b4.and b6?
Is the national assessment for Pabsic four pupils taking place in November as announced?
How will the JHS ones be examined before they moved to SHS?
Is the GES running on autopilot or there are strategies in place?
Why not make the strategies public, so that stakeholders will be abrest with the decisions, choices, and timelines.
Teachers at the JHS level are suffering due to the lack of planning, proactiveness of the GES. Sometimes JHS teachers get to the classroom and they don’t know what to teach the form one students all because they have no textbooks and have not been trained with regards to the new curriculum.
No one was chasing the GES to implement a new curriculum at the JHS, a rush decision and every negative outcome must be blamed on the leadership of the GES.
Read: September 2021 licensure examination: NTC opens portal for registration
We have four months more to end the second semester yet still no training has been organized for teachers on the CCP. So what are they to teach the learners in Basic 7?
All they know is checking lesson notes, the output of work, and instructing heads to sign performance contracts.
Ghana’s education at the pre-tertiary level is sinking under the GES since the poor implementation of rushed curriculums from KG to Basic 7.
Read: GES challenges SHS heads to improve 2021 WASSCE results, shame critics
The question is simple. What curriculum are the JHS1 students using? The old or the new curriculum? GES must answer. Teachers need to know.