‘Use resource packs to teach pupils’

The Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, has said even though textbooks for the new school curriculum are not ready, teachers should still go ahead and teach since they have been trained and provided with teacher resource packs to guide them.

“You cannot have teaching and learning materials before the curriculum. It is not possible. It is putting the cart before the horse,” he said.

Event

Dr Prempeh was speaking at a stakeholders’ engagement on a National Pre-tertiary Learning Assessment Framework, organised by the National Council for Curriculum and
Assessment (NaCCA) for teachers, district directors of education, circuit supervisors and teacher unions in Kumasi, Ashanti Region, last Thursday.

The forum was to solicit feedback from the stakeholders on a learning assessment framework being developed for the new curriculum.

Consultations

The Executive Secretary of NaCCA, Dr Prince Hamid Armah, said no decision had been taken on the assessment framework, because the council was still consulting major stakeholders for inputs into the final document.

He said the council would hold three major stakeholder engagements before drafting the final policy for submission to Cabinet for approval.

According to him, the country was moving away from the old system where students were assessed based on their ability to remember the things they were taught, and said the focus would now be on the ability of students to think critically on how to solve problems.

The new method of assessment will, therefore, include classwork, project work and class tests.