Dr Prince Hamid Armah
The Executive Secretary of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA), Dr Prince Hamid Armah, has indicated that the Common Core Programme (CCP) which is in its second phase of implementation will address the challenges currently facing the country’s educational system.
Speaking to journalists ahead of the national stakeholders’ consultation to discuss the CCP to be held on Friday, February 28, 2019 in Accra, he said the new curriculum has been carefully designed to meet the needs of the 21st Century learner.
He added that the CCP seeks to address the shortfalls in the current school system in relation to learning and assessment and promote better high school education that meets the varied learning needs of the young people in the country.
“We need a curriculum that will be responsive to the needs of the 21st century. We are no longer looking for graduates who will write and pass but graduates who are team players, problem solvers, critical thinkers, innovative and can communicate effectively to help solve many of our national problems,” he said.
According to him, children are no more believed to be tabula rasa, adding, “Science shows that even in the belly of their parent, babies are able to develop early language learning if their parents start reading to them during pregnancy.”
He said the government has therefore decided to reform the country’s curriculum from KG to SHS which is now the new definition of basic school within the context of the free SHS programme.
The Standard Based Curriculum for the KG to P6 is now being implemented with the emphasis on the learners, not the teachers.
“We are not looking at the teachers setting objectives and they trying to achieve their own objectives.”
“But we rather setting standards that we want the children, not the teacher to be able to know and demonstrate,” he noted.
“That curriculum is anchored on activity learning, problem solving and investigations to develop curious minds with critical thinking skills,” he added.
He said for purposes of consistency, the children who are going through the KG-P6 curriculum must be made to go through a similar curriculum which focuses more on doing and activity based, hence the Common Core Programme.
According to Dr Armah, the Common Core Programme which is expected to begin this academic year will see JHS 1 students studying only core subjects till end of SHS1.
In all nine subjects, include Religious and Moral Education, Creative Arts and Design, Social Studies, Sciences, Computing, Career Technology, Physical and Health Education”, he added.
Dr Armah said the new curriculum is expected to build character and nurture values, in addition to ensuring a seamless progression for all learners from JHS to SHS and create clear pathways for academic and career related programmes from Basic 11 (SHS2) to Basic 12 (SHS3).
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri